Action Replay
by Becky Blue Eyes
Summary: After Sugar Rush's restoration, it seems that every game in the arcade needs code altering. Luckily for everyone, the Codebusters are here to help, no matter what the hidden glitches, bugs, and programming errors may be. Takes place after Li16F and Gratitude.
1. Prologue

**Hello again!**

**This story is the sequel to Life in 16 Flavors and Gratitude, so it would be best if you all were to read those first. If you have, then welcome to the next story!**

**Disclaimer: I own a laptop, a pair of Converse, and thousands of dollars in student debt. Do I sound like I own anything in this story save my original characters.**

* * *

As most things in Choko Pockystix's life, it started out small.

The party Queen Vanellope-hime—was she supposed to drop the -hime now? She should schedule in a meeting over that—had thrown was the biggest event in the arcade since the wedding of Pauline-san and Donkey Kong-san. Everyone from Mario-sama to the Angel Kids to TIE fighter pilots had been there, eating cake as if there was no tomorrow. Choko had enjoyed herself, the Queen and all the racers had enjoyed themselves, and all in all the party was a major success.

And with that success came little requests.

First it was Tapper-san asking if they could help reprogram the door handles to the bathrooms. Then it was Cyril-san groaning about incredibly stupid AI. Then it was Emi-san and Mischaela-san and the Paperboy and it seemed that every game in the arcade needed her code expertise. After all, she had helped restore Honey the Cat back to her game, and she had been a major player in the reprogramming of Sugar Rush. Going to Choko was obviously the smartest choice.

She didn't mind—she was glad to be of assistance! Pointing people in the direction of their Game Genies with the proper codes was easier than five minute cake compared to being Secretary to the Queen, and she had a healthy work ethic along with her moral compass.

But still, it was getting a bit overwhelming with being a secretary and a high tier boss and a racer and an ikebana hobbyist—that reminded her, she needed to schedule in a class with the High Advisor about setting up more civil activities, right after she was done meeting with Ai Ai-san about a ball physics error—and Choko was being spread thinner than watered down anko paste.

But as she adjusted the pocky sticks in her bun and set out to advise more characters, Choko felt a sense of purpose in her off-time duty.

* * *

It was official: she was lost.

She was pretty sure that Q*Bert-san had told her that Ai Ai-san was visiting DJ Hero 2 today, but maybe he meant Guitar Hero 2. The rhythm games sounded too much alike for her feeble understanding of Q*Bertese.

Choko huffed and straightened the sleeve of her kimono. It wasn't worth getting sour over, she just needed to ask for directions out of the giant rave she had stumbled into. The fact that she amounted to about 3 and a half feet in this game full of 6 foot tall ravers didn't help.

She tripped over the repetitive leg movements of a half-naked lady—and _really_, she was no Yamato Nadeshiko but come _on,_ she has underwear longer than that woman's shorts!—and crawled towards the wall, the loud thrumming of electronic music mixing into her thoughts. She loved J-Pop so it wasn't much of a stretch to like EDM, but she struggled to concentrate on getting out when the bass dropped and filled her brain with wonderfully raging music fit for an intense mirror battle.

Inching towards the DJ booth, she ignored the giant track of music floating over their heads and climbed behind the giant speakers. She looked up to see a long haired DJ making the crowd go wild; Felix had pointed him out at the party, saying he was the guy to go to for any anniversary party. Clearing her throat, she shouted, "済みません (Sumimasen), but do you know where the exit is?"

He motioned for her to wait, then finished the track and let the crowd shout his name for a few moments before letting a DJ with a giant mouse head take over. Leading her to the backstage lounge, he smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, it's too loud when you're playing. Can I help you out?"

"Oh, not at all. I was supposed to meet Ai Ai-san here but I think he's in a different game, so do you know where the exit it?"

The man—teenager really, he looked to be about 20ish or so and his big glasses didn't help his boyish features—paused, then grinned. "Wait, I know you! You're the code master everyone's trying to talk to!" Choko blushed cherry red, and he continued, "Ai Ai was here earlier but had to bail to Dig Dug; I'll take you there."

He led her out a back door into the neon flashing landscape of DJ Hero, telling her to look out for any weak lights; apparently the boundary was acting up but he had marked the pockets. "I'm going to patch it up tomorrow if I have time. I know a lot about code myself—I'm a custom character, so data manipulating was literally built in my code—so I'll try and keep this game and Guitar Hero off your work list."

Choko laughed and hopped over a weakly glowing light. "That's a relief." She froze then flushed. "Oh, I've been so rude. My name's Choko Pockystix, nice to make your acquaintance."

"Well hello then, Choko. Skrillex is my stage name, but my friends just call me Sonny."

Choko liked making friends, especially the びしょうねん (bishounen) types.

* * *

Choko thumped her head against the wall, cursing the day she had neglected to tell Dig Dug how to eliminate invisible sinkholes in his game. As soon as she was out of this mess she was scheduling that in first thing tomorrow night.

Skrillex-kun had broken his glasses in the fall and was equally as miserable as she was, except that he was blind. By some sick twist of fate their combined heights of 3'8" and 4'7" wasn't enough to hoist Choko out of the hole, so this was shaping up to be a most wonderful time.

Footsteps echoed from up above and the two yelled out for help, Skrillex-kun adding in some very colorful language. The footsteps stopped, then a yellow furred cat with black hair pin two twin tails peered down. "Is that you Choko?"

"Honey-chan!" Choko bounced on the balls of her feet. "Can you help us out of here? We're too short and Sonny-kun has broken his glasses."

"Sure thing!" Honey-chan left for a long moment then the right side of their whole collapsed, revealing Dig Dug-san. They climbed (or in Skrillex-kun's case, hugged the wall and went at the speed of frozen molasses) out of the tunnel back up to solid ground, Honey-chan and Ai Ai-san trying not to giggle. "Lemme patch those glasses for you, mister."

Choko noticed with a small startle that Honey-chan directly fixed his glasses without using a cheat cartridge. Honey-chan paused, then shrugged, "When you spend 16 years talking code with your best friend, you learn a bit about manipulating it." She grinned brightly. "Thanks to you I can act on that."

Choko waved away the thanks—how could she not help someone in need of program fixing when she herself had spent 15 years in the void due to a virus?—before telling Dig Dug-san to go over his Game Genie and for Ai Ai-san to meet up with her at Sugar Rush tomorrow so she could see to his own game. Right now she needed to get back to Queen Vanellope-hime, and if Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan were to tag along and say hello, she wouldn't mind in the slightest.

* * *

Choko stifled a smile as Honey-chan overflowed Skrillex-kun's tea cup, the sugarplum tea spilling up to stain his pants a darker shade of black. Queen Vanellope-hime laughed out loud however, and soon the whole table was bent over with a bad case of the giggles. "So how did you all get to meet Choko?"

"Well, she got lost in my game and we bonded at the bottom of a sink hole, so I can safely assume that we're the best of friends now." Skrillex-kun and Choko giggled, and he wiped down his front with a linen. "Honey's a mystery though; one second she's helping us out of a pit, the next she thinks' I'm the Wicked Witch of the West."

Honey-chan stuck out her tongue. "Like anyone can see it with all that black you wear! What, was the rest of your clothes sacrificed in the name of the Hipster Lord?"

"Yep, the same cult that burned all your clothes and left you with a fabulously Gothic Lolita dress."

She glared at him for a murderous moment before breaking into a grin and nodding. "I like him."

The Queen laughed and shook her head. "Well, I'm glad to see you all are pals now, because I have a bit of a proposition." She stood up and gazed down at their expectant faces. "As we all know, no game is perfect and a lot of the games here in the arcade have glitches and bugs in need of fixing. I've talked to everyone in this arcade at least once, and the three people most qualified to fix those glitches—not just tell people a quick cheat fix, but actually patch the broken code—are sitting in front of me."

She smiled, hands on her hips. "We have Choko, an imported character who unlocked herself, who's been going around in her down time to help others. Then we have Mr. Skrillex, a character downloaded into a game without a hitch despite that he came from nothing at all, who's kept our arcade's rhythm games going strong all by himself. And then we have Honey, a former glitch, who knows more about cheat codes and how to deal with corrupted characters than anyone else I know. Guys, I think we have the makings of a team of...of code busters here."

Everyone blushed and shifted under her praise, Skrillex-kun mumbling about how it wasn't such a big deal. "But it is a big deal guys, just ask Honey what it's like to not be a glitch anymore. Just as me!" The Queen turned towards Choko, smiling fondly. "I think you guys can fix the whole arcade given the chance, which is why I'm promoting Choko to Executive Secretary of Intra-Arcade Code Regulations." She watched Choko's eyes go wide, smirking, "I got one of my personal attendants, Nilla Beanson, to fill in your old duties, Choko, so you have freedom for this job. Care to accept?"

"I..." Choko's mind was blown harder than Bubblebetty-chan's record setting gum bubble. She could serve both the Queen and the arcade now, and judging from the exited looks on Skrillex-kun's and Honey-chan's faces, now she had a team to help her. "I don't know what to say—"

"Then just nod and eat your cake before it gets old." Queen Vanellope-hime sat back down and adjusted her gloves. "You guys have a long list of games to check up on; you ready for it?"

Choko nodded with the rest of her "Codebusters", as her queen had put it, and smiled to herself. As long as they had their Action Replays handy and their spirits strong, they were ready for anything.

* * *

**And end the prologue to a very long saga in the arcade!**

**The Codebusters are the imported character Choko Pockystix from Sugar Rush, the downloaded character Skrillex from DJ Hero 2 (that totally explains his cameo in the movie, I am a genius), and the former glitch Honey the Cat from Sonic the Fighters. They have the most knowledge of programming in this continuity, so now they get to game jump and get their hands dirty in all sorts of messes. Yay.**

**済みません****: Excuse me**

**びしょうねん****: a very pretty boy**

**I'll be sure to translate anything Choko says in Japanese. Also, the POV of the next chapters will switch between the three Codebusters, so only in Choko's parts will there be so many Japanese honorifics. Before you ask, -san is generic Mr./Ms./Mrs., -chan means Miss and is reserved for young female friends, and -kun is for young male friends. Annoying I know, but that's how she refers to people in thought and speech.**

**I hope you enjoyed, and if you have any requests on which games you want to see, put them by me cuz there's a lot I need to write about! :D**


	2. Super Monkey Ball

**Here's the next installment of Action Replay, starring our wonderfully under trained Codebusters! POV switches will be noted and hopefully you all will enjoy :D **

**Disclaimer: Let's see...Disney owns Sugar Rush (although I lay claim to Choko), SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters and Super Monkey Ball, and Activision owns DJ Hero 2 (although I lay claim to Skrillex's existence) **

* * *

**Honey's POV **

* * *

Honey was standing outside of Sugar Rush with Skrillex, a.k.a. the Hipster Lord, and she bounced on the heels of her black boots. They were in gray jump suits with a giant red C on the back, their names printed in lovely script on the ID cards hanging around their necks. Honey had laughed way too hard when Skrillex accepted his suit with reluctance—she doubted he owned any clothing with color—and he had begun the greatest slap fight of all time outside of Amy and Nack fighting over the last sugar cookie. She was liking the long-haired loser more and more each second.

A white blur blasted out of the port and stopped on a dime in front of them. Choko was in a large white cart decorated with blue and green icing, "Codebusters" decorated on the sides with blocky red fondant letters. Unlike the other carts in Sugar Rush—to be honest, Honey wondered how any of them had teeth by now—their cart had a row of back seats, red marsh mellow upholstery looking way too comfortable to be made of candy.

Honey jumped into the cart and resisted the urge to gnaw on the cookie door. Skrillex set his backpack in the middle seat and held in a grin as Choko called back, "Are you ready?"

"Heck yes we are!" They sped off towards Super Monkey Ball, Honey fighting down the urge to crush them all in a monster hug. Two days ago she was corrupted into a frozen block, now she was off kicking code errors in their programming. Life was super spectacular.

* * *

Ok, so maybe life wasn't super spectacular at the moment.

They had shown up to a frantic Ai Ai; apparently his friend Mee Mee was stuck until the ball physics were up and running smoothly again. Honey felt bad for the monkeys, it really did suck having to wait for someone to reset them, and had asked how she had gotten stuck.

So Ai Ai had spawned them at the top of one of his tracks, rainbows and waterfalls making the entire scenario far too cheerful in her opinion. Skrillex was recording the game's background track—apparently the state of the music is a big indicator if the bug is localized or affecting the whole game, and after running it through a laptop he pulled out of his bag, he shook his head. "This isn't the only place where the physics have broken, right?"

Ai Ai nodded fervently, Choko translating that "it's been going on in every level, and now Mee Mee-chan is at the bottom of the level, but the ball won't bring her back up!"

Honey bit her lip and looked over the edge of the track; there was a tiny figure spinning uncontrollably at the bottom way down there, and she stomped her foot. "We need to pinpoint where the ball physics start going wonky!"

So that was how she had found herself in one of the balls, Skrillex tapping the smooth edge of her sphere. "Once the sound effects for the ball start glitching, stop the ball so Choko can identify the code we need, ok?"

"Got it; try not and weep at our parting, Sonny boy."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Honey face."

She stuck her tongue out at him and hesitantly rolled forward, noting that she was going much more smoothly than her nightmare scenario. The whole physics engine of the game were actually really cool, with the scenery bending to her whim. Rounding a ramped curve, she noticed that the soft whirling noise of her ball glitched, and she stomped on the brakes. "Choko, it's the curves!" But them her ball went wild and the whole track span uncontrollably, her ball launching itself into the air and over the edge.

Screaming the whole way down, Honey acknowledged that sometimes life was lamer than a bunch of overripe bananas.

* * *

**Skrillex's POV **

* * *

Skrillex peered over the edge, locating the two tiny balls gyrating without end. Choko was fiddling with her ID card, which was actually a skeleton key Action Replay, and was apparently fighting down a panic attack. He didn't blame her; when the game launched Honey into the abyss it was worse than losing your rhythm on an expert track. Still, it was pretty foking hilarious if you lacked a sense of empathy or a soul; he was pretty sure half of the DJs back home would've been in hysterics.

Ai Ai was turning in circles back at the starting point, yelling at his fellow characters as the ball physics went AWOL and tried to catapult him into the stratosphere. Skrillex kinda wanted to blast angry bass at the monkeys—did they _not_ just see what happened thirty seconds ago?—but opted for hovering near Choko. "You think you figured out what went wrong?"

"I have: there's a bug in the turning mechanism that causes the ball to lose its collision detection and for the scenery to tilt out of control. I think that years of being played caused a tiny programming error to finally come out of the code..." Choko played with the pocky sticks in her bun and turned back to the monkeys. "I know how to fix this, but we need someone to beat the level first."

Skrillex then realized that fate hated their guts, because when Ai Ai turned to roll down to Choko, his ball launched the poor kid into a waterfall, the glitching scenery doing the same to the other two characters. They all screeched as they fell down to where Honey and Mee Mee were, and the cheerful music eventually drowned out their yelling. "...three little monkeys jumping on the bed..."

* * *

"So all we gotta do is roll down this tiny little track?"

"Yes."

"And avoid spinning out to our dooms, of course."

"Yes. Try making gradual curves instead of drifting hard."

"...Choko, I'm a stationary avatar. I don't even know how to foking drift!"

"Well then you should do great! We go on 4. Ready?"

"Not really."

"1..."

"Ok, it's just like mixing a track, no problem, except that I'm the track."

"2..."

"And also this game is broken and I might end up at the bottom of a waterfall with Honey for the rest of my life. No problem."

"3..."

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap Choko we can't do this we're gonna fall CHOKO ARE YOU LISTENING—"

"4!"

* * *

**Choko's POV **

* * *

Choko let out a squeal as they barreled down the track, the curve of doom coming up ahead. Skrillex-kun had taken her advice and was curving sweetly to avoid losing control, and she pulled ahead. Quickly moving her admittedly short legs so she wouldn't fall over, Choko used every bit of skill racing had taught her to not freak out at the very sharp turn bending the track towards the goal. "Right then, we can't drift but that is a textbook pin turn, not enough track to edge that out...I'll just have to—SONNY SLOW DOWN!"

Skrillex-kun had fallen over in his ball and was speeding towards his destruction. The shock had knocked her over as well, and they screamed their way towards the turn. Skrillex-kun's ball glitched and then they were in the air, the whole track upending itself as if it were in a mixing bowl.

But then Skrillex-kun grabbed onto his ID and threw himself forward, his headphones out. The background music changed from its glitching soundtrack to a much more mellow mix Choko recognized from DJ Hero 2, and their balls calmed down enough for them to land back on the track and smash through the goal. Choko then popped out of her ball and stabbed the ground with her Action Replay, causing everything except for her and Skrillex-kun to freeze. He popped out of his ball, putting his headphones back in his bag. "Wow, I didn't know that would—"

She hugged him around the middle, jostling in around as she bounced excitedly. "That was amazing! How did you know that this game's speed was affected by the tempo of the music? I didn't even think that was part of the problem!"

He blushed and shrugged. "Well, I noticed that the background was going about 15 bpm faster, as if the timer was about to run out, and when Honey glitched out it went even faster. I think the ball goes faster when you're running out of time, really screwing up the already messed up ball physics, so I pulled it back enough to give us back control."

Choko took a moment to thank Vanellope-heika for adding a rhythm based character to their team, squeezed him a bit, then turned back to her Action Replay, which had opened a portal to the game's code well. "You think you can work your magic down there too, Sonny-kun?"

* * *

**Vanellope's POV **

* * *

She cradled her cheek in her palm as her Codebusters reported for the day. Honey had tripped Skrillex on their entrance to the tea room, so she figured that he had saved her at one point. And after listening to their misadventures in Super Monkey Ball, she wasn't incorrect. "So you put in a code patch that fixed the game, right?"

"Yes, Vanellope-heika. We had Ai Ai and Mee Mee race down a few more tracks and both the ball physics and the soundtrack stayed stable." Choko motioned for Honey to step forward, who was pulling a large crate of bananas behind her on a wagon. "They gave us 100 of their very best bananas as a thank you."

"Ooh, we can make banana bread. I should invite them for tea." Nilla was writing down notes behind her—the girl was shaping up to be a good successor to Choko— and Vanellope smiled down at her exhausted team. "It looks like you three can use some tea."

They shrugged, trying to to look too eager for hot drinks and food, and Vanellope waved in a few gummi bears to start setting the table. "So while we're waiting, can someone tell me who was the first to fall in the pit?"

"It was Honey, Your Queenliness, she drifted too hard on a turn—"

"Like you were any better, Mr. Let Me Barrel Towards My Destruction!"

"At least I didn't launch myself off the track! What, are you too used to falling down in your game?"

"Hah! Coming from a stand-still character, I'm surprised you knew how to control the ball at all!"

"Leave my game model out of this!"

Between them and Choko desperately trying to hold the two back, Vanellope laughed hard enough to fall out of her throne. Oh, her Codebusters were getting along perfectly fine.

* * *

**And that's the end of their first game jump! I'm pretty sure someone who had played Super Monkey Ball longer than I have will call BS on my theory, but I swear, the timer makes the ball 20x times harder to control. Or maybe that's just me freaking out XD **

**And as Silinarii very helpfully pointed out, -heika means "Majesty", so now I don't have to write out Queen Vanellope-hime every time Choko wants to speak. It makes life a lot easier. **

**Have any requests as to where they go next? Want to tell me how terribly I've done? Then feel free to review! :D**


	3. Ms Pac Man

**Welcome back to Action Replay! **

**This is a sorta important note, because I'm starting college again, so I'll be updating this story every two days from now on. Just letting you all know. **

**Anyways, on to the next adventure! **

**Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, Activision owns DJ Hero 2, and Namco currently owns Ms. Pac Man **

* * *

**Skrillex's POV **

* * *

He stretched his arms up over his head, leaning back against the cupcake chair. Choko and Honey were talking to Queen Van about...baking tips, or something, and he was getting antsy to go out and fix whatever was bothering Ms. Pac Man. That console was pretty close to the rhythm games, and whenever he was idling about he could hear frustrated gamers beating up on her console. Which was pretty foking terrible, because then they showed up to his game all upset and mixed like a three year old toddler drunk on vodka and Red Bull. And nobody should have to deal with that.

Getting out his Mac, he played around with a track he was mixing—say what you will about producing music as opposed to DJing on the turntables, he was a master at both—before jolting out of his seat when a certain black haired brat decided to sneak up on him. "Woah, you jumped like a foot in the air! You were almost an average height for a second!"

"Go get KO'ed, pixel princess." He checked over his Mac for damage, sighing in relief when he found none.

"Big talk from a stick in the static; you actually gonna walk in a straight line today?"

"Go roll down that track in SMB without falling off and then we'll talk."

Choko then grabbed them both by the ears—fok that hurt, didn't she see the plug in his ears?—and more or less threw them in the Codemobile, waving goodbye to a giggling Queen Van. The whole lot of Sugar Rush racers were babies, they were foking adorable, and as Choko started up the engine he earmarked his track. Best not to lose track of that one in the rush of all the music he liked to create for bonus tracks.

Honey stretched out, flipping his undercut, and giggled behind her gloved palm. "You hair is as long as mine, Sonny boy."

He glared at her twin tails thumping against her back.

"And your hair is almost as pretty as mine, too! Just needs a little trim and a good washing. You must grease it up with like...do they grease up the turn tables, or does that screw up the music?"

He sputtered as Choko sang from the front, "Somebody needs a makeover!"

"Ooh! I have really good moisturizer for your face, and we can work on your roots once we've done that!"

"Taffyta-chan has the best strawberry shampoo out of any Sugar Rush console, and Snowanna-chan has even better conditioner."

"Dude, I need to meet up with them, because my hair is drying out from kicking so much butt lately."

"Oh, then we need to talk to Rancis-kun, he has this fluggeroil serum that is just marvelous~!"

Skrillex groaned and thumped the back of his head against his seat. Yes, they were adorable and really good at manipulating code, but did they both have to be girls?

* * *

Ms. Pac Man greeted them outside of the game, her bow shifting as she paced with worry. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here! Mee Mee told me how you Codebusters saved her game, do you think you can do the same for me?"

"We'll do the very best we can, Ms."

"Oh, it's Mrs. outside of gaming hours, dearie. Pac finally proposed after all those years of chasing, but that was ages ago." Skrillex found it a bit hard to understand her under her heavy wakkawakka accent, but the little dreamy lilt her voice took on at the end was more obvious than any blaring synth. "Still, I should show you the problem I've been having. Quickly now, on the tram."

They piled onto the little pink train—of course it was pink, between Choko's hair and Honey's lip gloss, he was going to _turn_ pink—and sped into her console. As they approached their stop he pulled out his Mac and checked the GCS inventory of background music, listening to the normal run of Ms. Pac Man's sound effects. He snorted; they sounded pretty pink, too.

More importantly, the noise coming out of the game was just a little...off compared to the sounds in his laptop. The train came to a stop and he put his equipment away, falling into step with the rest of the Codebusters. Choko spoke up first. "Ok, Mrs. Pac Man-san, what is the...problem..."

"...oh my."

"It's been like this ever since two days ago, and we may not be the most popular of games anymore, but people have noticed!"

"...ah, I can see why this is a problem."

"Is it always like...this?"

"No, but they always end up here!"

"...that's not good."

"Do you think we're going to be unplugged?"

"Um..."

"...well, the music's holding together pretty...nicely."

"Yes...that's always a good thing."

* * *

**Choko's POV **

* * *

Choko had never been so thankful to have a 64-bit computer processor.

They were floating...well, not above the maze of Ms. Pac Man but they sure weren't in it. Honey-chan was trying to talk to the ghosts but they were stuck in their maze, an invisible wall appearing just as they had entered. Apparently that wasn't supposed to happen, but between an invisible stage and no hit detection, Choko wouldn't be surprised if the cast of Mortal Kombat came in dancing in a conga line.

Hanging out with Marzipanne-chan had done things to her sense of humor.

But she digressed; they had a job to do, and Mrs. Pac Man-san needed to complete the level before they could patch the game. The...whatever Mrs. Pac Man-san was, was currently leading Skrillex-kun through the darkness, explaining how the boundaries of the maze turned into warp tunnels. Choko sighed and carefully walked through the empty stage, kicking at the nothingness. It was far too similar to the Void she had once been trapped in for her liking. Even though her memory had just been restored, she could never forget how the darkness had swallowed her whole.

She walked up to Honey-chan, who was talking to the orange ghost named Sue-san, and Choko noticed how she too was uneasy in the dark. "Do we have anything useful?"

"Sue here says that the whole mess began when one gamer beat the game all the way to the very last kill screen." Honey-chan tugged on a ponytail, shuffling her feet. "Maybe the game's in a loop around this setting?"

"Maybe, but then why would the other kill screens load before this one?" Skrillex-kun was back, arms out in front of his body; poor thing must be completely blind even with his glasses on.

"Then maybe not a perfect loop. Mrs. Pac Man, you said that sometimes other stages would load before this one?"

"Yes, sometimes glitchy junior stages would pop up, but not always." Mrs. Pac Man-san circled the small group, wailing, "At least with Pac's game it's a single kill screen, but here you have a whole mess of them! Oh, we're going to be unplugged for sure!"

Choko stamped her foot. "Not if we can help it, Mrs. Pac Man-san!" She wandered around the edge of the box holding in the ghosts, running her fingers against the invisible wall. "You said that the boundary turned into warp tunnels. Why is this still stable?"

"This is a separate part of the game, where only the ghosts can enter." Sue-san was yelling past the invisible wall holding herself and the other ghosts in. "The entry to the code well is even in here."

Choko's mind went away from the scene back to Sugar Rush, where Vanellope-heika had shown her everything she knew about their game's cheat cartridge. "...wait, I think I know how to fix this!"

"How?"

Choko grinned and turned back to Skrillex-kun. "What do you know about debug mode?"

* * *

**Honey's POV **

* * *

Honey flexed her fingers, before smashing her fists against the invisible wall holding back the ghosts. She devolved into pixels **(it's ok just breathe, you're in control and the darkness isn't the bad place)** making the wall burst into static, melting away as she regained control over her sprite. Everyone cheered and she blushed, holding down her burst of pixlexia. "Let's roll out, Codebusters!"

She led the team into the holding cell, Sue opening the code well with a few motions of the giant joystick hidden behind a frilly pink curtain. The code for Ms. Pac Man was much simpler than that of Sonic the Fighters or Sugar Rush, and Honey didn't even want to think about DJ Hero 2. With the ghosts hovering and Mrs. Pac Man wakkawakka-ing out a warning, they floated down to the flickering programming boxes. "Ok, we all have our Game Genies?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, so Choko said to go into debug mode...so glad Sonic showed me how...ok we got the sound test. Sonny, what's the right combo?"

"We need two main themes, five #16 sound effects, two of #2, and then the game over track."

"...kay I got it. Choko, what do I do?"

"We don't want a factory restore because that's too risky; it took us three months to get our memories back after Vanellope-heika deleted the virus. What we need is to break the loop fixated around the kill screens."

"Ok, then we should have Mrs. Pac go back to level 1 in debug mode and beat it that way?"

"Not if we want to remind the game to function properly on its own."

"Well crap guys, that's the only way back to start. How did this loop start anyway?"

"Not many gamers come all the way to this point. I bet it made a closed circuit when the buggy stage got reached."

"Then how to we break the circuit?"

"What if we have her beat level this level in debug mode, spawning a dot map?"

"Why would we want that, hipster breath?!"

"Haven't you ever triggered your game's watchdog?"

"What's a watchdog, Sonny-kun?"

"A watchdog detects game errors and forces a reset of the game. Obviously these kill screens are an exception, since they "technically" work, but Ms. Pac Man says that gamers only come here before letting the timer run out and make the game start over at the beginning of the bugged loop. So this is the last "technically" correct level before the watchdog detects an error. So if we beat this level and overstep the boundary, we execute the error detection..."

"...then we break the loop of kill screens!"

"Oh Sonny boy, I could kiss you right now!"

"Oh you're too kind, Honey face, but save the romance for after hours."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV **

* * *

She held in a giggle as Pollipop applied a large slather of cocoa butter to his face.

Mrs. Pac Man had been there earlier, gushing over the Codebusters fixing her game and promising to spread the word to everyone. All three of the code masters had gotten large kisses from the lady, huge lipstick marks coloring half of their faces.

Skrillex had tried to bail afterwards, the little diaper baby, but then Honey had tackled him to the ground and yelled that a makeover was in order. That had called out all the other racers out of the candy cane woodwork, surrounding the poor DJ with various shampoos, leave in conditioners, and the dreaded nail polish.

Vanellope had challenged him to just _try_ and escape, but he was way smarter than Ralph had been, and submitted to his fate. She knew there was a reason why she'd picked him in the first place.

Now he was in a pretty lavender robe with Honey and Choko rubbing in Rancis's premium fluggeroil serum into his roots, Minty and Sour Apple debating which shade of coral nail polish would go best with his skin completion.

Thankfully the two weren't fighting anymore—heck, they were best friends now, always having sleepovers with whomever they could pull into each others' tracks. Vanellope herself had gone to one, and she still had the apple red nails to show for it.

She helped Crumbelina pick out more jackets for Skrillex to wear, everyone of the opinion that he wore too much black. Even the black licorice bats from Gloyd's level were offended by how much black he wore. "Hmm, maybe this black cherry would go well; he does have this reputation to uphold."

"Nah, all the more reason to mix things up with apple green."

"Why not both?"

They laughed to themselves, and fell over in hysterics as Skrillex tried to make a break for it when Marizpanne pulled out her favorite flat iron. Adorabeezle and Taffyta held him down, Bubblebetty squealing that he was going to have the prettiest waves this side of the blue raspberry sea. "Somebody needs to get this on camera."

Honey then grinned a very evil grin, and Vanellope gasped. "Honey, what did you do?"

Nilla then ran forward, reporting that someone by the name of deadmau5 was right outside, apparently there to take Skrillex home after his makeover. Vanellope gaped at Honey, who was high fiving Choko behind the spa chair, and the Queen shook her head. These kids were right monsters, evil little cavities, and she loved every bit of it.

* * *

"Dude! You're prettier than a girl!"

"Go fok yourself, Joel! I am fabulous!"

* * *

**Yes, that just happened. And I had too much fun writing it. **

**On the subject of Ms. Pac Man, that game has a series of kill screens from level 134 to level 142, the last of which triggers the programming's watchdog and forces a reset. Somehow the game had gotten stuck playing levels 134 to 141 on repeat, probably due to the game being pretty old and the kill screens being so buggy. But once they spawned enough dots for Mrs. Pac Man to eat and beat the last kill screen, they forced a reset and broke the loop, fixing the game. Pac Man only has a garbled split screen, making it a more creepy but much easily fixed problem as opposed to this. **

**Hopefully that wasn't too weird, I've been experimenting with writing only dialogue scenes. Blame my creative writing courses. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and please review and tell me what you think of Action Replay :D**


	4. Angel Kids

**Hey there!**

**Well, I started college again, so life is hectic and full of work that's gonna keep me away from this story. But do not fret, because I won't ever leave my readers hanging :D so onto the next adventure!**

**Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush, Activision owns DJ Hero 2, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters and Angel Kids, and I own all the custom content. What a wonderful mess this is.**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

While she would be a little reluctant to admit it, Choko was of the firm opinion that Honey was some sort of 招き猫 (maneki-neko).

Earlier that night, just after the arcade had closed and Choko was free to go off with her team, she had tripped on a fallen candy cane branch and nearly fell into a taffy pool. Honey-chan, who had taken the day off in order to practice keeping her pixels together in times of stress, had saved Choko from a very nasty dip in bright purple taffy. Then when they had trekked towards the port to GCS, Choko was nearly run over by a racing Pollipop-chan and Adorabeezle-chan; Honey-chan had pulled her back and yelled at the candy racers to "go get their carts tilted" or something along those lines. It was hard to tell when Honey-chan used such brash language.

Now Honey-chan was trying very hard not to play with Skrillex-kun's hair, which was very wavy and shiny and glorious. Choko made a mental note to thank Rancis-kun for the use of his serum. It just did wonders beyond any ordinary hair care product.

Smiling to herself, Choko pressed the bright green button on her cookie dashboard, frowning when the engine failed to turn over. Skrillex-kun mentioned that maybe it needed a quick trip to the Bakery—and he was admiring his coral flavored nail polish, Choko knew he protested a bit too much—and Choko huffed; they needed to get to the Angel Kids pronto and they didn't have time to fix the cart. Then Honey-chan got out and kicked the side just under the fondant R, grinning smugly when the engine roared into life. "Percussive maintenance is how we get things done in our game."

"So hitting you in the back of the head is now a good course of action? Awesome."

"Go ahead and try, pretty boy."

"You're just hating because my nails are foking amazing."

Choko tuned out their banter and sped towards Angel Kids. If Honey-chan's luck held up, then maybe they'd be in and out without risking their lives as usual.

* * *

One of the Kids bounced towards them, her childishly simple face filled with worry. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here!"

"We're here to help, Angela-chan. Can you tell us what's wrong?"

Angela-chan led them into her game, which consisted of various towers and beanstalks and what Choko thought was a large naked man. Skrillex-kun gave Honey-chan an aside glance, who sputtered that just because her game was also made by SEGA didn't mean that there were stages filled with naked legs. Angela-chan skipped towards her fellow Kids Angelo-kun and Ansel-kun, who were wringing their hands at the base of a beanstalk. "Ok kids, what's the problem?"

Angelo-kun told Honey-chan to look up, and the three code masters could see various children flying out of control at the top of the beanstalk, coins and shoes raining from the heavens. Angela-chan side stepped a falling diamond ring, then squeaked, "Our game was completely fine until just a few hours before closing, and then we lost control! We couldn't float, the others started crashing everywhere...it's a mess!"

"Yes, yes it is." Skrillex-kun shook his head, snapping his laptop shut. "Whatever it is, it's way deeper than just a physics error; the soundtrack is completely fine."

"And nothing seems to be glitching as far as I can see..." Honey-chan motioned towards the pink jump rope Angelo-kun and Ansel-kun were carrying. "I'm sorry, but how does your game work again?"

"Oh, we'll show you!" Angelo-kun handed Angela-chan his end, then the two Kids held the rope taut, the brown haired boy spanning his arms. "All we have to do is get the kids to jump to the top of the stages by making them bounce on here." He jumped on the rope, and the three carried themselves up a bit, Angelo-kun calling down, "That's all there is—"

A soft clicking noise beneath the racket of sound effects above made Skrillex-kun dash forward, but it was too late. Angelo-kun froze in place before skyrocketing, flipping all over the stage with no collision to keep him from phasing through the walls like a mirror match ghost. Angela-chan screamed, then fell back to the ground, falling harshly on Skrillex-kun's head. Honey-chan caught Ansel-kun in a lucky save, then they silently watched Angelo-kun pinball at the top of the world.

"..."

"...so does anyone have any idea what just happened?"

Skrillex-kun shook himself, then grimly stated, "I really hope I'm not wrong, but Angela, is a soft blip part of your sound effects?"

"Not that I've ever heard, why?"

"Well—" Suddenly he was up in the air, Honey-chan diving to save his backpack as the level split and dropped the remaining characters halfway through the ground. Choko struggled to free herself as Angela-chan and Ansel-kun worked themselves into panic attacks—the poor 子供 (kodomo) were going to make themselves faint—and Honey-chan forced herself to pixelate out of the ground.

"What was he about to say?!"

"I don't know Ansel, he's way up there!"

"Why is it that the only time Princess Hipster has something important to say, he gets _sucked into the sky_?"

"We're going to get unplugged! I don't want to live on a bench!"

"Calm down Angela-chan! We can fix this—Honey-chan, a little help?"

"Wha—oh, lemme fix that..."

"Ouch!"

"Sorry Kid, pixels can be pointy. Choko, what do we do now?"

"We need access to the code well. Ansel-kun, where do you enter your game's programming?"

"At the top of that beanstalk."

"..."

It seemed to Choko that Honey-chan's luck aura was running low.

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

"So we just bounce up to the top like on a trampoline?"

"Yep!"

Honey privately thought that this was going to be her death—not even privately, she flat out told Choko they were going to die—but sucked it up. Sonic would've charged right into the thick of the battle, big black eyes all narrowed with determination, his silky blue quills sharp for a fight...she blinked. Jeez, she was daydreaming again. She snorted to herself and held tightly onto Choko's sugar sticky hand, standing on a small ledge over a smiling Angela and Ansel. "You ready for this?"

"Hopefully the game won't affect us as greatly as the Kids, so we'll be fine."

"Skrillex is bumping around the stratosphere, Choko."

"Well...he almost said the problem out loud. Perhaps he jinxed it."

"_Jinxed_ it."

"Yes, like spinning your wheels before the timer starts. Anyway, we jump on 4. 1..."

"Is this what Sonny went through back in SMB?"

"2..."

"By Chaos, he did!"

"3..."

"Welp, time to prove who's the best at platforming."

"4!"

They jumped into the cord and bounced high into the air, screaming as they flipped into balloons. Angela and Ansel floated up to catch their rebound, and Honey relaxed just a bit into the tumbles that Nack was teaching her through. Curl here, absorb the bounce there, and try not to think about the broken pair of glasses below. Honey the Cat was the best secret character this side of Street Fighter, thank you very much, and she'd be beaten by Dr. Robotnik before she would freak out over something like this.

Choko bounced off of her back—_oww_ by the way, did she fill her obi with rocks?—and Honey resisted the urge to flatten her ears. Whatever was wrong with bleeps and bloops was way over her action-minded head, but she could live without being launched into the 16-bit ceiling until Mr. Litwak came to put them out of their misery. Angela yelled that they were halfway up the beanstalk, and Honey let out a sigh of relief.

Ansel then proceeded to drop like a rock, dragging Angela and their jump rope down with him.

Well...Chaos is as Chaos does, or something like that.

Honey clawed onto the beanstalk and let out a very unladylike tirade as Choko grabbed onto her tail to keep from falling to her death. Screaming at Skrillex, who was making Mobius loops somewhere to her right, that he owed her at least three albums in her honor, she clawed her way up the level, glitching her hands wrist-deep into the stalk to keep from losing her grip.

"Choko! Adjust your grip!"

"Umm...is that—"

"NO, GO BACK TO WHERE YOU WERE."

"ごめんなさい (Gomen'nasai) Honey-chan, but it's a really far drop..."

"This is the stupidest thing we've ever done! How can this get any worse?"

"—FOKFOKHONEYMOVEBEFOREI—"

Honey shrieked as Skrillex slammed into her and knocked her up into the air, Choko's frightened squeal ending with a loud "oomf!" as she landed at the top of the stage. With a quickness she was impressed by, Skrillex grabbed onto Honey's wrists and yelled, "THE CHECKSUM FOUND THE SRAM" before throwing her at the beanstalk and careening back into a group of flailing children. Honey grit her teeth as she landed, before rolling onto her side. Even if she was the queen of a fighting game, it always hurt to hit the ground at around 30 mph.

"Honey-chan, we need to fix the game as quickly as possible!"

Choko helped Honey to her feet, the cat straightening her twin tails. "Can we patch the game or do we need one of the Kids up here?"

"Technically they're already up here, and we just beat the stage so we're good to go."

"Awesome." Honey stretched her arms up over her head. "Now let's hurry; Sonny boy was looking a little green around the undercut."

* * *

Honey floated in the code well, looking at the code boxes. "Don't these look a little...weird to you?"

"Especially the ones running the game, just look." It was true; unlike the pink and blue of Honey's game, the Angel Kids programming was dominated by purples and yellows, and a few very ill-looking green ones. "What exactly did Sonny-kun say to you?"

"Something about a checksum and sram, whatever that is." Honey gazed back up at the entrance to the code well, where Angela was hovering. "My game is a lot different than whatever is wrong here."

Choko paused, then Honey watched the pink flush drain out of her cheeks. "What was the last bit?"

"Sram, why?"

"...I think he meant SRAM, I think he meant SRAM!"

Honey watched Choko frantically pull herself out of the code well, following in concern. "What's that?"

Choko crawled up to Angela, her bright green eyes flashing. "Angela-chan, is your game a legitimate copy?"

Angela froze, then flushed. "I...what does that have to do with anything?"

"It means everything!" Choko whirled about in agitation. "That blip Sonny-kun heard, it was the checksum detecting an unusual amount of SRAM! That's why your game is broken: the anti-piracy codes have been triggered!"

Angela gasped and backed away. "B-but that's not true! We're the same as any other game!"

"Normal game coding is blue and pink, but yours is purple and yellow. Not to mention in the character models the angels are supposed to be two males instead of two boys and a girl..." Choko trailed off as she saw tears form in Angela's eyes. "Oh I'm so sorry about raising my voice, 済みません (sumimasen). But now that we know why the game isn't working, we can take out the anti-piracy triggers and you'll be sweeter than a bun cake."

Honey smiled as Angela hugged Choko, then turned back to the code well. It wasn't an easy thing, to convince a game that some of its programming should be taken out for the good of the characters within, but what did she know?

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope shared an aside glance with Choko then giggled.

Skrillex was laid up on a marsh mellow couch in one of the castle's relaxation rooms, glasses fixed and placed on a side table. According to Choko, he had been sick ever since she and Honey patched up Angel Kids, his equilibrium shot like a sweet seeker out for revenge. Honey had been unusually kind, and was currently brushing out the tangles in his hair, but Vanellope figured that her fighting code kept her from kicking a man when he was down. She had all of tomorrow to make up for it, after all.

Choko sipped her sweet green tea then cocked her head. "Vanellope-heika, I must say...do you think the two are...you know?"

"Hmm?"

Choko held out a dainty pinkie finger.

"Oh no oh no!" Vanellope put her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing too loud. "Oh, I know who she likes, but it's not him. Besides, can you imagine the two together?"

"Like Rancis-kun and Taffyta-chan?"

"Or Gloyd and Snowanna?"

"Or Minty-chan and Sour Apple-chan!"

* * *

"Why are they—_fok_, my hair—rolling on the floor laughing?"

"Well, maybe if you would wear brighter colors maybe you'd have a more sunny deposition."

"And take away your source of endless enjoyment?"

"Oh you're too kind."

* * *

**招き猫 ****(maneki-neko): a cat figure which is often believed to bring good luck to the owner (she's saying that Honey is a good luck charm)**

**子供 ****(kodomo): children**

**ごめんなさい ****(Gomen'nasai): I'm sorry**

**済みません ****(sumimasen): excuse me**

**And that's that!**

**The checksum routine that's referenced here is a kind of anti-piracy measure. Namely, a routine checks to see how much SRAM (memory used for saving, in this case like saving top name scores) is in the game. Pirated versions usually have more SRAM than usual, so the routine goes off and any measure of anti-piracy actions take place, such as breaking the game. Obviously the failsafes are not failsafe, as Angel Kids has been working for some years now, but it was bound to catch up with them.**

**I've come to the conclusion that the Angel Kids game in Litwak's Arcade is a modified version, because in the original game there are two angels and one girl with green hair. In Wreck-It Ralph three angels are seen, one girl (Angela) and two boys, one of whom (Ansel) has much darker skin than the other (Angelo). So I figured that since Angel Kids is such an obscure game, Mr. Litwak didn't know that he had a pirated console. I also think that I need a life.**

**Read and review my lovelies, and feel free to guess where the Codebusters may go next :D**


	5. TRON

**I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVV VVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E (die) ****  
****  
****Seriously though, I'm so sorry for the month of silence! College decided to drop all the difficult on me at once, and between exams and essays and being miserable in general, it was a bad time for writing. But now that I have one free day, I shall try and redeem myself! ****  
****  
****Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush/Choko Pockystix (I helped), SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters/Honey the Cat (I helped), Activision owns DJ Hero 2/Skrillex (I helped), and I think Midway Games still owns TRON but it's unclear since they went bankrupt (I can't help with that).**

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

It was odd to find a quiet moment in her life outside of being in a frozen limbo hell for around 16 years, but Honey was enjoying the peace. To her left Skrillex was doing his music thing on his laptop, plugged in and shutting out the world, and to her right was Choko, who was hemming one of her kimonos with some refined cotton candy thread.

They were waiting for Mr. Litwak to leave his office and officially close the arcade; he was talking to his nephew or something and was excited, judging from the large arm movements he was making. Honestly, humans were as awkward as crowd filler and twice as useless, save the whole playing their games thing.

The old man finally bailed and freed the arcade from going through idle animations, Choko bouncing up from her perch. "Vanellope-heika said that the people of TRON need us to look over their programming."

"Ooh, I've never been there before." TRON was barely visible from her home game of Sonic the Fighters, but it seemed to be a cool place to visit. Honey wondered if Sonic would like to go and explore a bit after they fixed whatever the bug demons decided to throw at them—maybe they'd even go racing!

The sole male of their motley group stood up and stretched impressively for his diminutive height. "Joel said the place used to be a big coin sinker back before they made the switch to 3D."

"Poor things, couldn't keep up with the pixels." Honey flipped his hair as they made their way to the Codemobile, the sugar sweet dust of Sugar Rush making their boots stick to the ground. "Ugh, I hope we don't track candy into their data. They'd probably glitch to have their enemies be giant lollipops or something."

"Hey, I take offense to that!" Choko stuck out her tongue—it was bright purple, _somebody _must've been sneaking gumdrops between their races—and jumped into the front seat. Honey shoved Skrillex out of her way since he moved as quickly as a first-gen CD load screen, and Choko giggled. "You could stand to be a little more sweet, Honey-chan."

"Especially with a name like that." Skrillex grinned and Honey wanted to deck him in his too big glasses and even bigger nose.

"Then what the heck does Skrillex say for your character? 'Look at me I was a teenage screamo poster child'?"

Choko's laughter masked his shout of outrage, but couldn't cover him lunging at Honey in the small space afforded in the kart. And between Choko's too fast driving and the balance needed to show Sonny boy who was boss without KO-ing him outside of his game, Honey was having a blast. Quiet moments were overrated anyway.

* * *

What did Dr. Robotnik say about hindsight and watching what you say?

Honey sidestepped a grid bug as it and about 20 or so of its cousins decided to bum rush a group of battle tanks. Up above recognizers were duking it out like a game adaptation of the Red Baron and the Flying Circus, and whatever in Chaos was that weird cone thing was spawning like crazy. Honey couldn't hear herself think under all the sound effects, and her only consolation was that Skrillex was in worse off condition since he couldn't stand anything less than audio perfection.

Choko was trying to talk to the first player guy, Sam or Kevin or something, but whatever was making the enemies spawn like crazy was turning him into a sprinkler machine of raw death. His shots were going wild towards them, a bunch of light cycles broke through a wall and started circling the Codebusters, and Honey threw her hands up in the air. "Screw these shenanigans! Skrillex, Choko, let's find the freaking code well!"

Honey dragged Skrillex by the undercut to round up Choko, currently hanging on the back of the hero avatar like she was going to German suplex the idiot. "Honey-chan! He says that the only way to the code well is to defeat all the enemies first!"

"For fok's sake Choko, do you _see _this mess?!" Skrillex was unimpressed with the code bugs trying to gnaw on his leg.

Honey swung her first into a charging tank, glitching backwards when it exploded. "At this rate these bastards are going to overflow into the arcade! We need to think creatively."

Any brainstorming was cut off as a giant glitched recognizer snatched Choko and flew off into the colorless sky. Her screams were lost under the din of too many enemies and a paralyzed avatar, but Honey heard her well. She turned towards Skrillex, cracking her knuckles. "Ever saved a princess, pretty boy?"

He eyed a couple of idling light cycles, and flashed a manic grin. "Not without a kickass transport."

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Light cycles were currently the coolest thing outside of getting a 100% run playing Galvanize on Expert. He banked hard to vaporize the grid bugs on his left, narrowing his eyes as he spotted a slew of enemy light cycles coming his way. It was like improvising on a wicked dubstep staple, but with more death and destruction and wind getting in his face. He really needed to go back to contacts, as his glasses were currently trying to fly off his nose.

Honey came out of nowhere to slide right next to him, beams of insta-kill light trailing behind like a hanging chord. "Did you see where that thing flew off with Choko?"

"Somewhere up ahead!" A fok-ton of bugs decided to spawn up ahead, and they had to split up. Skrillex trapped his half inside his light trails, corralling them up like cattle or ravers or raving cattle, and he played with the controls on his bike. "Ok...how the hell do you slow DOOOOO—"

Well, at least he found the boost. Only experience with twisted tracks kept him from vaporizing himself on his own light trails, and he shifted the cycle down to a crawl. "Ok this is better. Now where is the princess?"

There were too many recognizers to count up in the air, but Skrillex was a sound master, and he could just hear Choko's screams of indignation filtering in from ahead. He sped up to kill some tanks—it was really satisfying to feel them hit his light trails, _too_ satisfying—and watched Honey go head to head with a trio of enemy light cycles. They were from a tougher level or something, because she was quickly trapped in a shrinking box of death.

Without a second thought, he boosted into one of the enemies and nearly rammed into the second. Their light trails fizzled out as they died and Honey was free to take out the third with a nice corkscrew of death. They pulled up next to each other, trying not to grin too widely. "Didn't tag you for a Leeroy Jenkins, emo butt. Thought for sure you were gonna kill yourself."

"I'll have you know I had a perfect strategy!"

"And Choko doesn't sneak melted malt balls into your civilian clothing after our shifts."

"...lolwat."

"Don't tell her I said that."

Skrillex tightened his grip on the handlebars as more light cycles blared out from the horizon. "Let's focus on not dying before any big commitments."

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

"あの (Ano)...Mr. Recognizer-san? Can you please...let me down now?"

The grid below was flashing with enemies killing each other, making Choko very sick to her stomach. The metal bar wrapped around her wasn't helping.

"I'm sure that this is part of your AI, but I'm not actually part of your game. In fact, I want to help reprogram it! See, you're kinda buggy—"

Five energy shots whisked over her head, hitting the recognizer holding her up in the air with painful shudders.

"—ooh, it looks like Sonny-kun has glitched that tank into his light cycle! Now he has fire power...and he's shooting at you since, well, you know."

The trails of blue and pink light were pretty from way up here. The blue light cycle was weaving quite excellently from her perspective.

"Honey-chan is much better at turning than I'd thought she'd be. She's a nice girl, you shouldn't tell your fellow enemies to try and kill her."

A sharp cry echoed from below, and Choko huffed.

"ほんとうですか (Hontoudesuka)? Was picking up Honey-chan with one of your recognizers necessary? She has a temper you know."

Metallic ripping the din of sound effects and general chaos.

"Aaaand now she's beating the recognizer with its own arm. You should let us go so we can fix this."

Flashing pixels exploded into the black, lighting up the strangely mapped landscape.

"Sonny-kun is blasting away at those...are they cones, Mr. Recognizer-san? I should look at their coding once we fix the game."

Cheers came from around her level, along with a weird grinding noise.

"It appears that Honey-chan is riding her recognizer and it on a collision course with us."

Her perspective was off, as she was being held upside-down, but the rogue recognizer was getting closer.

"Can you let me go please? Before we both die?"

The pink light cycle was perfectly matched with her relative position.

"Oh, Sonny-kun is waiting below...are they—"

"PREPARE FOR A DROP, CHOKO!"

"Well, it was nice talking with you, Mr. Recognizer-san!"

A large explosion ripped Choko out of the metal arms and down through the air. She landed on Skrillex-kun's back with a thankfully gentle landing, even though he smashed his face into the dashboard and broke his nose. Honey-chan drove her burning wreckage to the ground and hopped onto her own cycle, grinning widely. With a large explosion the pieces of recognizer took out most of the enemies around them, and even with Skrillex-kun's unsteady driving, the Codebusters were ready to take back the game.

* * *

Choko tugged on an errant code link that was disrupting the natural flow of enemy generation in TRON. To her left Honey-chan was holding Skrillex-kun steady as he put in code to fix the wonky AI; the poor 美少年 (bishounen) was suffering from a mild concussion, and needed all the stability in the gravity lacking code well he could get. "Sonny-kun, do you know why this code box keeps trying to make connections?"

"Whell, der migh be eh vierush dat caym frum a corrubded enemieAeEi."

"...could you translate that, Honey-chan?"

"Mr. Can't Walk 3 Feet Without Injury thinks that an enemy AI program got corrupted and wanted to start taking over the game."

"Like with Turbo?!" Choko could feel the sugar rushing out of her face.

"No, Turbo was an actual character. These guys are mindless, so they didn't have the brains to do more damage than spawning too many enemies and screwing over the avatar. Hey, what was his name again?"

"I believe it was—"

"Ghott et!"

Skrillex-kun pulled out a writhing black program that was glitching red, and Choko was pulled back to a blank gray hell where she couldn't breathe past the corrupted animation crushing her face. How did Vanellope-heika manage to defeat that Virus-Van 怪物 (kaibutsu), that evil evil fiend who destroyed her home and friends and nearly their entire _life_—

Choko was being rocked by Honey-chan up above, the enemies gone and sated after Skrillex-kun patched the game. She was saying something about how it was going to be ok, the dark place was gone and they could move as freely as they wanted to, and she needed to stop crying because there wasn't anything to be worried about anymore.

The cacophony of sound effects was replaced with a slow, quiet melody that Choko faintly recognized as a remix of her personal theme. She sighed and relaxed into the embrace, holding onto Skrillex-kun's hand. They were right, the virus was gone and they had beat it back and saved TRON. They were the Codebusters, and no stupid coding error was going to sour her day.

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope watched as Choko taught Skrillex and Honey how to sew. It was a weird skill set that even the tomboy queen possessed—but don't tell Ralph, that stink brain would never let something like that die—and apparently it was fascinating. She figured that people with five fingers were just inferior in the realm of cotton candy needlework.

"Your Most Majestic Sweetness, Wreck-It Ralph is waiting in the reception hall." Sour Bill was really laying it on thick with the royal stuff, but she figured it was a hold over from taking care of King Candy.

"Tell him I'll be out in a sec. I gotta check up with my favorite arcade hackers."

She bounced off her throne and brushed loose sugar sparkles off her gown. It was bubble gum pink today, since Bubblebetty swore it would go perfect with the three red pigtails she decided to load onto her sprite today. The marvels of costume switches. Speaking of which..."So deadmau5 tells me your pink and red heart jacket is a huge hit with the players."

"Joel can suck a—"

"LANGUAGE."

"—sucker pop. Jeez, you hit really hard, Honey."

"And DJ QBert said they really like it when you paint your nails lemon yellow."

"I knew you liked that color!" Choko clapped her hands and giggled at the irate glare on his face.

"We should give him another make over. That frown is going to give him wrinkles!"

"Good idea, Honey!" Vanellope laughed as Skrillex bailed for the reception hall, screaming at Ralph to run for it. As if he didn't pocket a bottle of blue raspberry eyeliner the last time he was here.

* * *

**あの ****(Ano): like saying "umm"**

**ほんとうですか ****(Hontoudesuka): "Really?"**

**美少年 ****(bishounen): a pretty boy. This time written with kanji.**

**怪物 ****(****kaibutsu****): monster**

**I need to stop picking on Skrillex, but he's just too fun to mess with XD**

**Please tell me how I did, since this is the first bit of writing I've done in over a month, and please review! It makes me feel better having feedback :)**


	6. Mega Man: The Power Battle

**I swear I'm not dead guys, I'm just drowning in piles and piles of WORK that I must do :( But spring break is coming, and since I just bought Wreck It Ralph, my creative juices shall be running better now :D**

**Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, Activision owns DJ Hero 2, and Capcom owns Mega Man: Power Battle. I just contributed to the plot, characters, etc.**

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex groaned as he thumped the back of his head against the gingerbread wall, trying to force the cacophony of noise out of his brain. Today had seen a birthday party of 7-13 year olds, and each one had the mixing skills of a broken blender pulverizing his childhood dreams. And people said his dubstep was horrible; obviously none of them had seen a pixy stick-covered baby try and play on expert.

Honey was next to him, massaging out the charley horse in her leg. The parents that brought their Sonic-obsessed tween should be taken out back and rammed through the head with a power chord; between songs Skrillex could see this pimply little twerp absolutely wrecking Sonic the Fighters. He even knocked his soda all over the cord, and Skrillex swore he saw Honey and one of the Sonics screaming such terribly adult language behind the static. Luckily Mr. Litwak came in and saved the game from taking a trip out to pasture.

Now all cleaned up and recovering from the madhouse, they were waiting for Choko to get out of her meeting with Queen Van. Sugar Rush was swamped like no one's business, all the characters switching costumes and burning flour and playing that damn theme song over and over. He weakly dropped his hand onto his poor abused Mac, making sure it was still there. The room was spinning a bit too much...

Choko made her way over, her hair flashing between green and yellow and blue as she looked for her natural shade of pink-red. "You guys look like you could use some sugar."

"Ugh, anything sticky sweet is too much like soda..." Honey did a cool stretching thing where she popped all the joints in her back. "Let's just go to...where are we going?"

"Mega Man started glitching out a few hours into kiddie hell." Skrillex put his Mac in his backpack and stood up. "It looked pretty bad where I could see."

"Ooh, I've never been around that part of the arcade." Choko finally fixed her coloring and helped Honey to her feet. "The car's out front, let's get going."

Skrillex waved at some of the passing candy castle staff as they stumbled towards the Codemobile, Honey leaning hard on Choko. He felt bad for her; once he sprained his wrist mid-game and it was a foking nightmare. Still, as he slid into the back seat, it was hekka awesome to have people want to play as him, play his songs, so he could deal with snot nosed munchkin devils getting his game's equipment all sticky. He just liked to complain a bit.

* * *

Skrillex whistled at the large expanse below the out-of-reach platform they stood on. All sorts of worlds and battle arena stretched out like planets around the sun, all with tiny little melodies he was mentally composing into one. He snorted—even after hours he was still bringing music into everything—and turned towards Honey. "Is this what your game's overhead map looks like?

"Pretty much; my level's hidden since it's not formatted correctly, but I'd put it by that one...one of the group 7 levels? This game is weird." Honey somehow managed to hook her leg behind her head as easily as flipping her hair. "And I heard that it's not even supposed to be played outside of Asia. You figure we have another pirated game?"

"If that's the problem it'd be a localization issue instead of like the Angel Kids mess." Skrillex played with the delicate cartridge around his neck. "But let's figure out the extent of the damage first, kay?"

"Sure thing." Honey gingerly unhooked her leg and adjusted her weight. "Choko, where's Megaman?"

"Over here!"

The three Codebusters turned and Skrillex was witness to a most enchanting moment. Megaman spawned himself in their little overhead, and Choko's bright brown eyes widened with the first taste of young love. Immediately she sighed and nearly melted into a puddle of chocolate and adolescent goo. Skrillex tugged on Honey's ponytail to keep her from laughing, and he memorized the exact shade of cherry blossom pink Choko flushed. This was too perfect. "Nice to meet you, Megaman."

"Pleasure's all mine." He grinned and completely missed the little giggle Choko fought to hold back. "Anyway, let me show you where the glitch is; Dr. Light checked and it's not a localization error like we thought."

Skrillex logged that in the back of his mind and made sure to listen for any irregularities in the soundtrack. It was pretty amazing how much the music of a game could show what kind of error was screwing up the code, half the time he just wanted to remix and unmix and dig into the heart of the chords—

Something knocked him into the air and FOK he was tired of being a cosmic chew toy! Before he hit the edge of the stage's scenery and blacked out, he heard something go amiss in the mix of yelling and shock and hit detection.

_'We're certainly going to have fun tonight.'_

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey caught Skrillex's body and cursed when the sudden movement made pain twist deep in her thigh. By Chaos, she was going to chase down that fanboy who thought it a grand idea to use her all freaking day and wring his little neck! She set down the slight statured music master and turned towards Megaman. "Was that the glitch?"

"Sometimes we get attacked by invisible...whatever the heck that thing was. It got to the point that the final boss is unbeatable!" Megaman whipped around and fired his cannon at the air, hitting something before it could smash into Choko. "Be careful, Little Miss, these things are two-hit killers."

Choko squeaked and hid behind Megaman, making Honey bite down hard on her tongue. Oh, this was worse than Tails' crush on Princess Peach! She mentally shook herself; now was not the time for shipping. "We gotta beat the circuit we're on before we can access the code well and fix the damage. How unbeatable was that boss?"

"Even with two players we couldn't destroy all the invisible attackers."

"Well, we have two more." Honey cracked her knuckles. "I've been having a bad day, I need to let loose a little steam."

Megaman flashed a thumbs up and scooped a blushing Choko onto his back. "I'll lead us through a tunnel we built for moving between stages during active game play. Let's get going!"

Honey scooped Skrillex up like the Disney Princess he should've been, and chased after Megaman. The air around them whipped harshly as invisible daggers and disks aimed for their throats, but they were no match against Megaman's bionic legs and her hard earned muscle. Sonic would be proud, she was sure of it, and she leapt over a low-ranged attack. "So how tough are these things?"

"It depends. Sometimes it only takes one charged blast, sometimes it can take up to ten." Megaman shifted to allow Choko a better grip. "The size changes too; the biggest ones take the most damage."

"It just keeps getting better and better, huh?" One disk about the size of a Chaos Emerald nicked her side and Honey hissed. "Too bad this isn't my game, otherwise I'd smash them all in with my bare hands."

Skrillex jolted as something hit him upside the head and blurted out "Coordination!" before going limp. Honey smirked. "The princess has spoken, Megaman. This is Mega Man: Power Battle, no?"

They arrived at the second half of the final stage, where an unwilling Dr. Wily was being backed by an unseen number of ghost blocks. Choko leapt down from Megaman's back and pulled out a bunch of pocky sticks as if they were daggers. Honey went into her battle pose, Skrillex was blinking back into consciousness, and Megaman gave them all a huge white grin. "Then let's battle!"

* * *

Honey jumped onto what felt like a spinning platform and punched an incoming brick headed towards her head. Flipping backwards, she slammed her heels into the scenery wall and propelled herself forward, the wings on her dress folding outwards. Copying Knuckles, she span like a drill and decimated the platform, Chaos thrumming in her veins. "How you guys all doing?"

"Never better!" Choko was some sort of kunoichi with her pocky daggers. She had changed her outfit to include peanut brittle geta, and by the looks of it, they were sharper than steel and twice as hardy. She took down a series of invisible disks and Megaman praised her, making her blush as deeply as her hair. Ah, battlefield love, it was as sweet as any candypunk based attack.

"Aim for Dr. Wily! The extra attacks seem to be coming from his center of gravity!" Skrillex was a flash of black darting through the chaos, using his Action Replay to make the sound effects of the invisible attacks more prominent. "Megaman, can you blast away some of the robot please?"

"No problem!" Megaman charged up a blast and Honey blinked as it took out countless flying bricks as well as pieces of Dr. Wily's machine. Suddenly she could see why Choko was so smitten; as a power-orientated girl, that was most impressive. "Dr. Wily, can you move towards a corner?"

The giant robot cracked open as Dr. Wily flew out and hovered by the edge of the stage. Megaman made loop de loops on spinning platforms as Skrillex and Choko doubled back away from a barrage of flying invisible spikes, and Honey slammed onto the ground. "Sonny! What the hell are we up against!"

"We need to destroy Dr. Wily! These things have the same sound effects as his attacks—they're spawning off him and all the other enemies in the game!" Skrillex hit the floor as more spike wheels skimmed over his body, dragging Choko down before invisible hands could smack her face off. "If we don't eliminate the source, we'll be stuck here until we're unplugged!"

"Screw this noise!" Honey leapt onto Dr. Wily's head and started pounding on his robot's arms. "I did not deal with the birthday party from hell to die because of another enemy spawn error!"

"Honey look out!"

Honey was suddenly flying high in the air, being combo crushed by a flurry of attacks. She could feel her health deplete and hit the ground hard on her Chaos-damned _leg_ before everything went black.

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Skrillex-kun screamed and nearly teleported himself to her side, pressing his hands around the bone jutting out of Honey-chan's thigh. "We need to finish this NOW!"

Megaman-sama charged into the fray, blasting everything in sight with no regard to his health. Choko made sure to shadow his moves, moving her arms as gracefully as his, matching his strong steps towards the enemy robot. Dr. Wily-sensei forced himself to stay still as Megaman blasted away at his armor, yelling out where his weak spots where. Choko flipped backwards onto a flying platform, her geta scratching into the surface and causing it to falter. Pulling out more pocky, she threw them towards the angry noises below, closing her eyes to focus on the sound effects.

She could hear the whirl of her platform, the whooshing followed by blips that signaled the invisible attacks, the creaking of the metal robot, Megaman-sama's powerful bursts of energy that made her hands sweat and her stomach jolt...she could hear Honey-chan's blood pump slower as Skrillex-kun forced his Action Replay to buzz and fizzle around her leg.

Choko opened her eyes and jumped.

She slammed down hard in a somersault onto Dr. Wily-sensei's compartment, the whole robot exploding into a thousand candy colored bursts. Megaman-sama quickly did away with the rest of the invisible enemies, the angry glitches phasing away into nothing. They all stood still for one quiet moment before rushing to Honey-chan, Skrillex-kun throwing Honey-chan's Action Replay at their faces. "Just take it and get to the code!"

Megaman-sama caught the cartridge before it could shatter on the ground, and led her to the game's code well before they could be savaged by any more enemies or daggers or platforms or whatever. Choko fought down a giddy sigh as his powerful arms heaved up the monstrous plate hiding the NES controller. A quick Konami code and they were in the darkness, Choko grabbing onto his hand to keep herself from floating away, of course. "Tell me what we have to do."

"ええと (Eeto)...we need to find the e-enemy code..." Choko cursed herself. Of all the times to speak like a tongue twisting sour patch brat, it had to be right now! "Just follow me..."

She quietly marveled at how helpful and polite Megaman-sama was; instead of charging forward into his own code he respectfully followed her lead, his bright blue eyes illuminated by the code, detangling any reaching cords that snagged onto her obi...why oh _why_ did she have to be programmed to be too young for real love but old enough to feel this rush?!

"This is the code, right?"

They floated in front of a madly fizzing and crackling series of boxes, the enemy code swelling with invisible clones. Choko directed Megaman-sama to connect the Action Replay into one of the code boxes, the menu already directing them to reset the values on the generation data. "Wow, this is powerful. Why do you think it's glitching now, Little Miss?"

Choko was proud of herself for not squealing. "Today was a very traffic i-intensive rush, and sometimes with games w-with established problems—you said you're game h-had localization issues?—too much gameplay can upset t-the code." Choko fiddled with her modifier, tracking down an error in the game's graphics engine; that explained why they were invisible. "It's not t-too much of an issue..."

"Well, I wouldn't say that, Little Miss. I hope your friend Honey is going to be alright." Oh, he was so cute when he was concerned over the well being of her maimed ally! Choko wondered if her game's code could be altered to boost up the Sugar Rush racers' ages, just a little. Surely Swizz-kun and Lemonetta-chan could understand her plight!

"Sonny-kun won't let anything b-bad happen to her." There; the code was now patched and functioning normally.

"Ah, are they..."

Choko giggled. "No, but they're good friends, like brother and sister. They just like to fight a lot."

Megaman-sama grinned. "I know people like that. Sometimes my sister Roll and I get into such stupid arguments." He stretched and あら (ara), he was so strong... "I wish that I could have someone though, you know? Not that anyone's interested in a regular guy like me."

Choko blamed her frustrated scream on getting her hair bun caught into her Action Replay.

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope swung her legs under her throne as King Candy wrapped up the meeting with the heads of candy. Their design of Parliament was coming along smoothly, almost ready for general elections by the people, and Vanellope smirked to herself. She had the democracy of a President and the grace of a Queen, all wrapped up in a fun size portion; Mirror-Vanellope would be proud. Nodding to King Candy, she left the main discussion room to sneak back towards her own reception hall. King Candy was pretty much her grandfather, all ready to spoil her and cater to her every whim, such as bailing out of the meeting early to check on her Codebusters.

Honey had broken the leg she was messing with earlier, and according to Dr. Mario was out until the next Codebusting round. When she had left, Vanellope's ears were ringing from Honey's very angry and very unchild-friendly swearing; the girl may have been named for Honey but she could be as sour as Sour Apple from time to time.

She slipped through the door to find Honey pouting on a marshmallow recliner, Skrillex braiding her long black hair into a very intricate Dutch crown with various accents and dangling braids. Choko was helping him weave ribbons and bows into the mix, and Vanellope laughed. "Having fun, my number 1 Codebusters?"

"Honey's trying too hard to be upset for having a few days off even though she knows it'll be good for her." Skrillex grinned even as she made a swipe for his plugs. "Besides, now she has more time to gossip and daydream about boys, like all girls do."

"Hey, not all girls are so coquettish, Sonny-kun."

Skrillex and Honey exchanged a glance, and Vanellope knew Choko was in for it.

"Oh Megaman-sama, your biceps are _so_ strong!"

"Oh Megaman-sama, it's _so_ wonderful watching you blow up all these enemies!"

"How old are you again, Megaman-sama? Surely a robot such as yourself can appreciate the _love_ from a young girl's heart!"

"I'm the oldest out of the racers Megaman-sama, I'm 12 and eight months!"

"Marry me!~"

* * *

King Candy glanced towards the gold glazed doors and chuckled to himself. It did his heart good to hear his little Queen Vanny laugh so hard after all these years, especially when she was laughing with her friends.

* * *

**kunoichi: a female ninja**

**geta: Japanese wooden clogs. They kinda look like flip flops on little stilts.**

**sensei: how you address teachers, doctors, and people with mastery in some art or skill. As Dr. Wily is a scientist, polite Choko is polite.**

**ええと ****(Eeto): another way of saying "Uhh..."**

**あら ****(ara): supposedly "oh my goodness". I hate using Google Translate instead of my own knowledge, so I'll have to get back to you on this.**

**Poor Choko! That awkward stage between childhood and full-blown adolescence is killer when you have a crush on someone older XD**

**The glitch here is adapted from a glitch I once saw on a video. There, spinning spike platforms were flying out towards Megaman, and the player was supposed to jump on these platforms to get to the enemy. However, they were invisible and attacked like crazy; the person playing apparently took hours to beat the boss. I turned that into pieces of enemy attacks (daggers, platforms, ambiguous blocks) being invisible and spawned like crazy until the enemy that they're being spawned from is destroyed, as seen with Dr. Wily.**

**Mega Man: The Power Battle was only released in Japan as Rockman: The Power Battle, but since Mr. Litwak has a knack for getting imported games in his arcade, he has an illegally localized cabinet. And because his age in the game is ambiguous, Megaman here is based off of his Megaman X sprite, in which his age is in his late teens to early twenties. Sorry Choko, but you're a little too young for him.**

**Leg injuries are no laughing matter. Keep yourself healthy!**

**And I hope you enjoyed this chapter; it was pretty hard to focus on the battle as I suck at those. So feel free to review and tell me how I did :D**


	7. Crazy Taxi

**Hello once again, my faithful audience!**

**Here's another chapter with one of my all-time favorite arcade games, filled with various puns and glitches and proof that Mr. Litwak has questionable software in his arcade.**

**Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, and Activision owns DJ Hero 2, and Crazy Taxi is owned by Hitmaker/SEGA (developer/publisher)**

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

There was nothing sweeter than the ability to walk without pain.

It was a horrible way to go on vacation, having her leg snapped in half with only her wonky regeneration cycles to fix it, but Honey figured it was a battle of wills and patience that she eventually won. Besides, her Sonic was so sweet and caring the past few days, always checking up on her between fights and running down to Tappers to get her root beer floats.

And now she was cleared for Codebuster duty, her first night back set with a mission to Crazy Taxi. Sonic the Fighters had a really crappy view of the arcade, being mostly blocked off by Sugar Rush and Hero's Duty, so she was kinda excited to go about the arcade and actually see what all these gamers are into nowadays It certainly beat being a statue for 11 Chaos-damned years.

Waving bye to Sonic—he walked her to the Sugar Rush port, what a gentleman!—she skipped into one of the nifty go karts and sped down the cord, her new and improved leg jumping up and down. Choko had suggested getting Fix-It Felix to fix it with his hammer, but her code was still shaky after years of being a broken block of pixels; 'fixing' may end up deleting her leg!

Parking at the mouth of the giant candy mountain, fighting down a small urge to see if she could actually eat the scenery, she peered down to see Choko and Skrillex zooming up the sour patch rainbow bridge. They were both grinning brighter than a handful of rings, and she felt a small burst of friendship-flavored warmth in her belly. "Honey-chan, you're here!"

"Like a run-of-the-mill total bone fracture could get me down." Honey struck a fighting pose, Choko giggling into the sleeve of her pink kimono. "Now I'm back and better than before."

"As much as it's painful to say it...we missed ya, Honey." Skrillex flashed a genuine smile, lit up by the screen of his laptop. "Ready to go?"

"Heck yes I am!" Honey jumped into the back seat and flipped Skrillex's undercut—the punk was keeping up with the beauty regimen Queen Vanellope set up, his hair was just fabulous!—before settling back into the marshmallow seat. She had missed this car way too much. "So Skrillex, this Crazy Taxi's game by your end of the arcade, right?"

"Yeah, there was some real weird stuff happening from what I could see. Flying pixel-pigs and whatnot."

"I see. Isn't that game a racing game?"

"Nah, but it has a car though."

Honey could feel the sudden spike of giddy anticipation burst out of Choko's small frame. "What do they do in there?"

"From what Joel told me, you drive around shuttling annoying taxi...people, until your timer runs out."

"Do you get points for driving fast?"

"Oh yeah. Driving fast, driving off road, driving on the sidewalk...it's called Crazy Taxi for a reason."

"Ah, I see. Just checking..."

Honey grinned as they rocketed through GCS, various people on break diving out of the way as Choko shifted gears. Honey winked to the Surge Protector as Choko bypassed the Crazy Taxi's cord transport and made static burn against the Codemobile's undercarriage. Apparently Honey wasn't the only one excited for their newest mission.

* * *

Honey lifted an eyebrow at the chaos in the streets. Cars were flying through the air, the wall boundaries were shifting to trap unlucky pedestrians, and the taxi was halfway sunken into the ground, the taxi avatars furious yelling at them to fix it. "So Skrilly, have any idea what the hell is happening?"

"This is a legit SEGA game as far at the soundtrack is telling me, so the anti-piracy trigger hasn't been set off. Choko, you have any idea?"

Choko kicked the side of the taxi's wheel, and watched the car sink fully into the ground. "On bad days in Sugar Rush, sometimes the racers get stuck in the walls or end up glitching in the air. But once the arcade closes down it goes back to normal...besides, we can't fix whatever's wrong if the taxi is stuck in the ground."

One of the taxi drivers came forward, eyeing the Codemobile. "Not necessarily." She looked back at the others, nodded, and grinned. "The taxi's just a special agent that's allowed to execute the gameplay. If, say, one of your Action Replay things could locally alter the code of your car to make it act like an agent, you're set to go."

Choko blinked, then turned towards Skrillex and Honey. "Are we allowed to do that?"

"Allow me." Honey cracked her knuckles and unhooked her ID tag, changing it into the Action Replay cartridge. Slapping it down on the hood, she closed her eyes and focused on the golden code flickering below her palm. It was one thing to glitch things back to their normal set—on her break she honed her glitching skills to fix code objects in her own game without an Action Replay—but this...this required knowledge of altering the function of an object. Just like changing a dummied out joke character into a fully functional fighter...Honey grinned as the code of the Codemobile aligned with the Crazy Taxi's data, growing larger with longer rows of seats and a little fondant T hood ornament. "I think it worked. How do we find out?"

Choko started the engine and a menu screen appeared over their heads, tracking their time and money gained. Skrillex whistled and hopped into the Codemobile, flashing a thumbs up at the taxi drivers. "Stay away from the buildings, they eat people. We'll be back once we fix the game."

"Right on, little man. Does your friend need a tutorial on how to play?"

Choko pulled in Honey to sit in the middle—darn, Skrillex called shotgun—and grinned manically before driving headlong into a client with a green money sign over his...little space aura. Honey blinked and turned towards Skrillex, who was fiddling with the car's radio to sync up with Crazy Taxi's soundtrack. "Sonny, I think we broke Choko."

"Meh; sanity is for fools anyway."

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex shoved his backpack down between his legs as Choko launched their car into the air. The guy they were ferrying to the cable car stop could give a damn about running over pedestrians as long as they "were safe". Choko knocked a cable car out of their way, making a bunch of people scream—their screams were hilarious, he needed to stop hanging out with Joel—and then they were airborne again, earning tips for their work. They made the stop with 35 seconds to spare, earning $700 for their trouble.

700 foking dollars after a clear case of reckless driving and endangerment. Honey shared his incredulous double take at their counter, then held onto each other as Choko crashed through what appeared to be a hotdog stand to get their next client. Skrillex was mildly surprised that SEGA got the rights to say "Pizza Hut" in their game, but what did he know about copyrights and realism in games.

He gripped his stomach as Choko swerved through oncoming traffic. They were getting mad tips for an already wonderful fare, but holy crap, he should not have stuffed his face back at Queen Van's place. He focused on the music coming out of the chocolate speakers...wow, SEGA even got The Offspring? Nice.

With the wind flowing through his hair and the palm trees up against the blue sky, it accessed programmed nostalgic feelings. Apparently, he was born and raised in California, which SEGA was known to base their good games off of. Fixing his glasses, Skrillex said screw it after Choko drove off a ramp to land at their destination, and sang along to the soundtrack.

Honey was looking at him like he was crazy, but she was just too proud to admit that this was pretty fun. Crazy, but a thousand times than the TRON disaster.

As Choko picked up a new customer, Skrillex noticed that his speech and the music started skipping to the beat of the walls flexing their boundaries. Huh, he didn't expect lag to be an issue screwing up the game, but it made sense. In such a high-intensity driving game that encouraged Choko and the gamers to drive through obstacles for maximum profit, one moment of slowness could trip the car and stick them inside a wall.

"Choko, the lag's killing the game!"

"I know, I can feel the car fighting with the game's engine!" Choko shifted gears and drove off the road to get to the park, brown eyes narrowed with manic concentration. "We gotta smooth out the flow, otherwise we're going to get stuck ourselves and run out the timer."

"I can fix that!" Once the client jumped out of the car Honey started fiddling with her Action Replay, casting Choko an aside glance. "Technically, if we stop now we can say we won the game."

"And get an F grade?" Choko giggled, and Skrillex wondered how someone so adorable could made his adrenaline run. "Oh Honey-chan, we're better than that. Much better."

Honey paused, then shrugged, her fingers raising golden static. "Drive to your heart's content. I'll keep the lag from sucking us out of the road."

Choko squealed then raced backwards through pedestrians into another customer; once again copyrights were nothing in the face of SEGA. "Sonny-kun, do you have a map? I need the fastest way to KFC and the arrow's not giving me a good reading..."

Skrillex opened his laptop and accessed the code of Crazy Taxi, finding the tracks. "Ok...to KFC...ok, just loop past the 10 and keep going right. The left is a sinkhole of pin turns and we don't have time for that."

"On it!" While Choko managed to drive on only half her wheels to make the correct turn, Skrillex pondered the Californian dialect. Joel would've said that Choko should go past I-10, dropping the "the" and adding back the "I". But that just sounded hella retarded...

"It's cuz you're from both Northern and Southern California and he's Canadian and Canadians are weird." Honey nodded sagely from her seat, and Skrillex conceded that Honey had her intelligent moments. Only sometimes. "I didn't know you could sing so nicely."

"My programmer was really into making me just like the real Skrillex guy." Skrillex head banged as Choko drove up a mountainside to get to church as a few cars glitched in the air, singing along to the radio. "What about you Honey, what's in your programming?"

"Well, I was based off of this Fighting Vipers character named Honey. SEGA thought it would've been cool to add me into Sonic the Fighters, seeing how my game's engine is pretty much a copy of Fighting Vipers, but AI never really made it in there."

"Ah, bummer." Choko drove further up the mountain to get back onto a road and asked for his map. She looked at it then nodded and drove through incoming traffic again. "The important part is that you're here and not in that bus." Said bus was in the throes of super lag, tearing itself apart as the game engine slowed down and caused it to lose control of its determined path and go crazy into a wall.

"It's the little things...hey Choko, where are we going?"

"Shortcut!" Choko drove off the helipad station and onto the freeway, rocking out to the song that was on. Huh, Skrillex didn't peg the little J-POP fan to like harder punk; it made his heart warm to know that even little candy brats could appreciate 90s music.

"Choko."

Their car slammed through a moving truck and Skrillex forced the truck to glitch out with his Action Replay.

"What are you doing."

Their client tipped them heartily for sliding in between three oil tankers without crashing and dying.

"Choko."

The pint sized driver grinned and sped up.

"STAPH."

The Codetaxi did a flying spin off the road, Honey screaming about Chaos and super modes and crazy little girls. Skrillex didn't scream but cheered as they landed and sped off in the opposite direction, crashing through more unfortunate fruit stands to get to the baseball stadium.

"Honey, it's best not to question the driver..."

"Sonny, I just healed my broken leg. I do NOT want to be put back in Dr. Mario's office cuz Choko drives like a crack head!"

Skrillex turned up the volume. Really, they had over two grand in the bank and 74 seconds on the clock. They were doing just fine.

* * *

Skrillex hated lag. He hated, hated, _hated_ lag.

In his game it turned his songs into a foking mess with note detection going ni ni and any combos going straight out the window. In Honey's game it froze up the characters and let the CPU get cheap shots. In Choko's game it turned Story Mode into an ordeal of rubber banding bosses beating out the avatar just because their wheels decided to get stuck in the ground.

In Crazy Taxi, it made cars glitch into each other as their paths crossed and weren't updated.

Choko grinded the wall next to the R. B. station as Honey punched cars out of their trunk, the client glitching and tipping them every half second. That part Skrillex was ok with—money's money, no matter how it's earned—but by the power of Havok Physics, how the heck were these cars getting stuck in their undercarriage?

They only earned a Normal payout due to being three seconds over Speedy, but Choko took it in stride and drove through a wall to get to a new client. Skrillex threw up his hands; now Choko was asking for it. "Babychild, you need to drive with respect to the—"

"I don't care!" She drove under the scenery and gunned the engine, everyone screaming as they glitched through the game. "The engine's lagging, the boundaries are shifting because the game's too busy path finding that it's forgetting to cycle through the scenery, and I'm tired of getting beaten off the roads because the AI wants to go all Magic School Bus on me! _I'm_ driving and_ I_ say we're making up new gameplay, so _you_ just keep the soundtrack moving, ok?"

Skrillex sank back in his seat and whistled as they made it to their stop with time to spare. "You're the racer, you're the boss."

Choko giggled. "Why thank you, Sony-kun. Now let's get some more money~!"

Honey laughed loudly, shaking her head. "Isn't she adorable?"

"Sweeter than Nutella—speaking of which, did you know that the first ingredient's sugar?"

"No way, I thought it was hazelnuts!"

"Nope, first sugar then palm oil then hazelnuts and cocoa. I feel lied to, but it's freaking delicious..."

Choko drove down a steep incline, avoiding the curving roads for a direct path of madness. Honey, keeping one hand on the dashboard to ensure that the car, didn't lag, turned back to talk to their client. "So how is your day going, sir?"

"Let's move it!"

"Well, that's nice."

Choko plowed through a sidewalk full of people, their screams making Skrillex and Honey giggle as their client told Choko to watch the road. As if his pre-recorded phrases had any idea of the majesty of Choko's insane driving.

Honey settled into the seat as they made a quick stop at the mall and sped off into another customer. "I bet you three pennies that Choko will breach the $30,000 mark before we finally time out."

Skrillex shook his head. "At the rate she's going, make it $50,000."

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

As she pulled into the Sky Bank, Choko gave herself a little fist pump.

She was a queen of the race track, anyone who had played Sugar Rush new that. As the penultimate boss and the only Japanese character, she was the developer's little way of bringing some kick ass East Asian style into the foreign arcade scene. She was quick and dirty and covered in chocolate: she was Choko Pockystix, the best darn racer Crazy Taxi will ever get to see.

Ok, maybe that was a little arrogant of her. But she didn't even need the map now, she knew the track by feel, by the shortcuts and the holes in the wall boundary. Picking up people glitching under the ocean? No problem, happens all the time. Need to transverse three kilometers in ten seconds because the timer lagged out? She could get there in five.

She shifted gears and drove through the bank, Honey keeping the Codetaxi from glitching out and getting stuck on a wall. Sure, she was kinda sorta technically cheating, but it was a crazy world they drove in; she had to keep that meter running and the money flowing, a never ending bakery of madness and mania.

Choko picked up a redheaded woman and sped onto the highway, smirking as the woman tipped her handsomely for drifting through five lagging cars. This game was_ fun_ when it was broken, the laws of socialization and rationality and physics able to bend to her whim. She wondered if Sugar Rush could be made to act like this after hours. Vanellope-heika admitted once that her battle against the evil virus was kinda fun in hindsight, in a morbid way.

Quickly drifting around a gridlock of frozen cars, she launched herself into the air and up over the track, sliding across the boundary like it was melted chocolate. Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan were talking about the pros and cons of Nutella frosting next to her, and it was a valid argument. Perhaps she could experiment with her flavors...

Yet another oil tanker got stuck her her back wheels and Choko sighed. How was she supposed to beat the game if the game wouldn't let her drive? Stupid AI, trying to path find its way through the only working avatar...

She dropped off her last customer by the starting point of the game and baked as the final three seconds—really, she could get so much done but Honey-chan was looking a little sick—clocked out. They were transported to the results screen, her cheerful smile in the place of the female driver's picture.

"I made $61,098.54! 159 customers, Crazy class, 1st ranking... 素晴らしい (Subarashii)!"

Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan were laughing really hard; must be the excitement of completely wrecking the scoreboard for future generations of gamers to come. They shall all come to fear her name... "Let's put in our initials! C...H...S, by age of course."

Honey-chan ruffled her hair—minding the pocky stick pin of course, they were rather delicate—and turned towards the Crazy Taxi avatars, who were cheering wildly. "Now that's settled, where's the code well of the game? We gotta unclutter your game engine's code if you want any chance of beating Choko's score."

"I doubt anyone's coming anywhere close to that!"

Choko blushed. They were too sweet.

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope spread the Nutella on her cinnamon swirl bread, Nilla taking notes at her side. Skrillex was sagely correcting the Nutella rationing of her fellow racers; Bubblebetty put on too much and Adorabeezle too little. The entire cast of Sugar Rush was at this info-gathering tea part, Honey opening the tightest of Nutella jars.

"My Lady, it appears as if Rancis Fluggerbutter has attempted to fix flugger oil with Nutella." Nilla pushed up the licorice glasses on her nose. "We may have to take him to the infirmary for sugar overdosing treatment."

"See to it that he's good to go for tomorrow's race. He's been planning to get into the Racer Roster all week and missing out tomorrow will make him throw a little diaper baby tantrum."

"Of course." Vanellope liked Nilla, she was very dependable in a world of sugar rushing brats. Granted, Vanellope was the Queen of sugar rushing brats, but that gave her a little leeway to poke fun at others.

She took a bite out of her bread and sweet mother of monkey milk that was good. "Sonny, where did you learn about this?"

Skrillex nodded for Marzipanne to add a bit more to her cookie, before shaking his head. "Lemme tell you Queen Van, the guys back at DJ Hero 2 are a bunch of closet sugar addicts. They would go crazy if they ever came here..."

Vanellope shared a glance with King Candy and giggled, rubbing her hands together. It wasn't fair just to pick on Skrillex and Honey and Ralph, surely she should spread the wealth with the rest of the arcade.

* * *

"WHAT IS THIS MYSTICAL WONDERLAND?"

"Ok Suri, you've never been to Sugar Rush before, just let the sugar soak in a bit—"

"DUDE IS THAT A RIVER OF TAFFY?!"

"Fro, don't do it, you'll regret it—"

"I MUST BECOME ONE WITH THE COLA MOUNTAIN."

"Joel, step away from the mountain, it'll burn—"

"THERE'S A FOUNTAIN OF PIXIE STICKS!"

"Pixie, remember your New Year's resolution—"

"OHJESUSTHEFLOOR!"

"...Queen Van, can I get a un-stickifier or something? Half the DJs fell into that molten pit of melted lollipop goo, and they're unhappy about that."

* * *

**素晴らしい (Subarashii)!: awesome!**

**Havok Physics designed the physics engine of DJ Hero 2. Suri/DJ Surikizu, Fro/Fro Train, Joel/deadmau5, and Pixie/Pixie Dust are all characters from DJ Hero 2, and let's face it, how would you react if you went into Sugar Rush?**

**Let's recap about Crazy Taxi: it's a game where the only thing keeping you from driving through the scenery to get to your destinations on time are the wall boundaries. Because that game is so erratic—it encourages you to be as violent and manic as possible in your driving—its engine would have a hella hard time keeping both the avatar taxi cab and the computer AI cars on the road and functioning. As the day goes on, more and more code gets cluttered in the engine as little glitches and bugs take their toll. Usually, once the arcade closes the engine has time to go through its uncluttering cycle and keep itself running without lag. But something happened during gameplay, and the engine didn't go through its cycle. Cue ultra lag launching cars and getting people stuck in vibrating walls; this happened to me once and I abused the glitch like Choko did.**

**Her high score is based off of the high score in the Gameworks (ironically enough, owned by SEGA) by my house. Seriously, it must've taken that gamer an hour to rack up so much cash.**

**Nutella is delicious but so bad for you. Use it sparingly.**

**Skrillex pointed out interesting differences between California English and the rest of the world English. In SoCal, we call the Interstate 10 freeway "the 10". In NorCal, they call it "10". Everyone else calls it "I-10/Interstate 10". That's just a weird thing I've noticed going between states. Also, NorCal people say hella; in real life Skrillex lived in both parts of California, and says hella As a SoCal girl, that's weird XD**

**I hope you liked this chapter, and feel free to tell me how I did!**


	8. Dance Dance Revolution X2

**Well hello there!**

**My incredibly boring spring break has prompted me to write another Action Replay chapter. Aren't you all so lucky that I'm lonely and stuck in my house with no car or friends, babysitting my little sister. As a result, today's chapter is very long...like much longer than I'm usually going to write these chapters. So please don't read the next one (I'll probably be back in college by then) and go ARGH WHY IS IT SO SHORT because in all fairness, this is the freaky long one XD**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Disney, SEGA, Activision or Konami. If I did my spring break would be way more fun.**

* * *

Choko's POV

* * *

Choko yawned and stretched her arms up over her head, arching her back like a banana. Sugar Rush had a nice rush of gamers at the arcade today, people still marveling over the added content in their console. To be fair, they were probably the only Sugar Rush Speedway outside of Japan to have a story mode, so Choko figured someone had spread the news. Mr. Litwak-sama's arcade in general seemed to be getting a lot more business ever since Vanellope-heika altered the game data; it was nice to imagine that Sugar Rush did something sweet for the arcade.

Choko shook her head to clear her thoughts—it was best to stay humble about any feelings of popularity, lest you end up like Turbo—and turned towards Honey-chan and Skrillex-kun, who were bouncing on giant gumdrops. "Having fun?"

"You bet! For a racing game made around my time, you have really good graphics." Honey-chan did a double front flip off the gumdrop and landed in the Codemobile, tightening one of her pigtails. "Makes me jealous for having such rigid polygons."

"Oh, Mr. Litwak-sama's nephew came around...2010 I believe it was, and he gave our game a graphics update. I don't remember too well, seeing that technically I didn't exist until last year."

"Yeah, that was when he added me to DJ Hero 2." Skrillex-kun lightly hopped off the gumdrop and started brushing at the sugar crystals stuck to his back. "He comes around when he's not in college and keeps the games nice and shiny to compete with new stuff like Hero's Duty. I think Sonic the Fighters is due for an update..."

"Yay! Maybe now I won't look so jagged in-game." Honey-chan helped clear Skrillex-kun of the sugar crystals, and tapped her bottom lip. "Emi, one of the girls from DDR, was visiting Amy a few days ago and was talking about her game needing something updated, I forget."

"Speaking of which, that's where we're going today." Choko hopped into the kart and turned on the engine, waving to a passing Minty-chan. "From what I saw between races, it looked pretty bad—Mr. Litwak-sama put them out of order! But I heard him say that worst case scenario he'll just call down his nephew, so they're not in danger of being unplugged yet..."

"That's good; DDR consoles aren't doing so well and ever since Arcade Infinity went under a few years back, music-based games as a whole are declining." Skrillex-kun crossed his arms, relaxing back into the seat. "Good thing my console gets both my game's fans and all the old Beatmania fans, otherwise I'd be in a very bad place."

"Same here; I'd freak if I saw a Fighting Vipers anywhere to dilute my gamers." Honey-chan let her fingers dangle as they passed through the cord, playing with the static shifting her pixels. "I also heard that Gameland three cities over went out of business and half their games got picked up by a Dave & Busters across state."

"No way, they were doing so well!"

"Yeah, the Dr. Robot—I mean _Eggman_—from M. Sonic's game heard some baseball players talking about it. According to some high school kids, the owner decided to become a monk and sold off all his things, so now Litwak's Arcade is pretty much the last arcade around here. Good thing that Dave & Busters needed more Mario Karts, and some gamer's cousin wants to collect the Q*Bert game, but no one knows about what happened to the rest of the Gameland consoles..."

Choko was quiet as she crossed GCS towards DDR's port. She wasn't around to remember the gradual decline of video arcades, games being taken in by either big chains or collectors. In fact, between all the Asian-exclusive and unusual and out-of-production games she's been seeing, Litwak's Arcade was a safe haven for anything beyond a Street Fighter II. But surely the games at Gameland and Arcade Infinity felt safe before their games were unplugged—Arcade Infinity was the cornerstone of Southern California! Now they were scattered across the state to a Dave & Buster's or a Gameworks or a Chuck E. Cheese or...or a grocery store if they were lucky! Otherwise...Choko hoped that the gamer's cousin was serious.

Pulling up to the DDR transport, Choko clenched her fists. She had just started to live, she didn't want to get unplugged due to something so sad as money running dry. So next to keeping Sugar Rush nice and popular—screw being modest, lives were on the line!—she needed to keep the last DDR machine off Route 83 from being unplugged, bringing down her arcade, her home, and scattering the friends and life she had just gained. "You guys ready?"

"Yeah, I think I got all the sugar crystals.."

"Wait, you missed a spot."

"My face!"

Choko laughed and hopped into the train waiting at the station. No, she didn't want to be split up from these characters, even if they were mixed with extra nuts.

* * *

The second they walked in Skrillex-kun swore. That was never a good sign for anything.

Three seconds later a bunch of strobe lights around the club scene of DDR went wild, blinding them and making Choko's code frazzled.

Five seconds after that, the catchy J-Pop music playing glitched, and Choko swore she was back in a virus-ruined Sugar Rush, unable to speak or breathe...

The music cut off as Yuni-san came forward, her eyes wild with fear. "Oh crap, are you guys ok?"

Honey-chan pulled Choko to her feet, Skrillex-kun held up around her shoulders. "We've had worse, but nothing like that. What's happening in here?"

"It's a nightmare, nothing's playing right and the visuals are going crazy because the music controls the game, and that's just the simple stuff." Yuni-san threw her arms up, glaring at the disco ball swirling in the ceiling. "Every time a gamer would fail a stage because _hello_, we're having a meltdown here, someone would get trapped in that song! Like...the arrows and the stage track would suck us into the data and we were completely stuck. A total game over would sometimes send people back, but now half the cast is stuck in this...this..." Yuni-san sighed, anger lost. "This isn't some oni glitch the player brought on, this is something I've never seen before."

Skrillex-kun stood up and walked into the center of the dance club, where a DDR dance pad was mounted. He pulled out his headphones and slipped them on, listened for a bit to something Choko couldn't hear, before shaking his head. "There's five songs playing behind the mute you put on. I can imagine that this cluster"—oh look, an adult world—"of a music playing error made the stage layout falter in its rhythm-tracking program and start pulling in the stage data of the other songs, making a glitched out junk level that your friends are stuck in. Do you know which songs they might be in?"

Yuni-san nodded, pulling up the music list from a giant hologram screen. Choko was impressed with the interior of the game; there wasn't a need for a hologram screen in Sugar Rush but it would be nice to have one. "Eight songs, if you count Dark Rinon who is more of an event than a character. So..."

Honey-chan stepped up to the dance pad, the soft blue and pink lights illuminating her ID tag. "Eight songs to beat. I'm pretty fast with my footwork, and Choko's a little J-Pop fiend, and Sonny's the greatest rhythm tracker of all time. I think we can do it...if we stay on easy mode, of course."

Yuni-san summoned two more dance pads, and Choko hopped on, watching the music list narrow to the ones containing the trapped avatars. She recognized a few of the songs—Tobikomi had a good relationship with Konami—and grinned, waving to the small crowd of surviving dancers. How bad could it possibly be?

* * *

**Round Robin POV**

* * *

"Left! Left!"

"Choko, you gotta keep the quarter notes down, the step pattern is based off of 'You are a Star' on easy mode. Just ignore the triplets, those are garbage data."

"What the heck? Those arrows are going off the screen!"

"Ignore them, they're a bunch of liars...just what in the world is this song supposed to be anyway? I'm picking up a lot of garbage static..."

"Sounds like Kimono Princess...sort of...not really..."

"...wait, I don't have three legs! How do I hit those all at the same time?"

"Quick, lemme...just...there!"

"Honey-chan, get back on your pad! You're missing all your arrows!"

"I'm screwed over already, you're the one we gotta keep alive."

"Ok, the song layers are falling apart so I guess the stage is almost over. Honey, get back on your pad."

"!"

"Honey-chan, are you ok?"

"..ouch."

"Aaaand that's it, no more arrows!"

"I still have some...did we fail?"

"Looks like we got a...D. We got a D."

"何？(Nani)? That's _horrible_!"

"Doesn't matter, we saved Emi. Onto the next song!"

* * *

Honey bounced on the tips of her toes, resisting the urge to grab onto the bar behind her. It was just too distracting to even breathe, trying to pick out arrows to stomp on. By this point she was pretty sure her shoes were on fire, or at least melting. Wiping swear off her forehead, she doubled down on the eighth notes and thanked Amy for helping her with her footwork. A few arrows decided to make pinwheels across the screen, and how in the name of Chaos was she supposed to figure that out?

Deciding that it couldn't possibly hurt to see how her fellow Codebusters were doing, she glanced at Choko and nearly fell off the pad and died.

She was flopping on her pad like a fish, randomly hitting the pressure sensors.

Honey choked on her laughter as tears ran down her face, finally grabbing onto that stupid bar. Skrillex ended up saving their butts and Alice, but by Chaos, why didn't she have a camera on her?

* * *

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...you know, between the really girly singing and the messed up instrumentals and that Rena girl flailing in the background...it sounds like the Powerpuff Girls theme."

"...Sonny, I love that you know what that is."

* * *

Skrillex dropped to the floor in a hand plant, counting off the beat in his head. It was like a glitchy Guitar Hero, nothing he hadn't fixed before becoming a Codebuster. Just as long as he kept his head in the game and didn't dare look at Honey doing the can-can, he was going to pull through and save the guy currently being mauled to death by killer arrows in the background and everything was going to be fine and...

...

...just what the heck was playing underneath Sakura Sunset? Was that...that was _Speed over Beethoven_? But...but that song wasn't even a part of the game!

Something in his brain snapped and he crashed down on all fours in a rage, beating the pressure sensors like a pair of bongos. How dare this twisted bastard of a glitch play songs that it wasn't supposed to! What was the point of an exclusive soundtrack if at the drop of a hat, the program goes fok it, let's play some dummied out songs?! Did they not care, did they not _think_ that some upset DDR Extreme fan would try and screw with the game and create crossed over music data that would crash the machine? Any DJ off the grid could tell you to never get rid of a fan favorite in favor of some crappy licensed song by Vanilla Ice!

Skrillex snapped out of it when the results screen gave them a B and freed Julio. Standing up and primly adjusting his undercut, he ignored the horrified starting of Choko and the raging hysteria hiding behind Honey's tight-lipped smile. Everyone had their moments and the guy was saved so he didn't get why it was a big deal, he was totally justified!

* * *

"And left! And right! And double step!"

"This sounds like a little like LOVE SHINE, Suri loves this song..."

"KEEP IT UP!"

"What the heck was that?"

"It seems as if we've saved the announcer."

"Well, that's a good—leg cramp!"

"Oh jeez oh jeez, Choko just try and—"

"Choko!"

"Can someone stretch out that leg and get her back on the pad? She's dying out here!"

"Ok Honey, we gotta pick up the slack or we'll fail the stage."

"These stupid electric arrow row things are making me so upset."

"You're telling me, there's too many—"

"OH NO, TOO BAD!"

"Wait, what is—"

"OUTSTANDING! KEEP IT UP! AMAZING!"

"That announcer is distracting me! Skrilly—"

"THE CROWD IS CHEERING!"

"No, they're fixing Choko! At least be factual when you're BREAKING MY CONCENTRATION, ok?"

"100 COMBO!"

"Who has a—"

"OH NO!"

"Yuni, turn him off!"

"We can't, not until the stage is finished and we save Bonnie!"

"200 COMBO!"

"...I hate you."

* * *

Choko held her arms out to keep her balance, holding her breath as a very difficult cluster of arrows came up on her side of the screen. Seriously, she had no idea what kind of person could dance nonstop without missing a single arrow. Maybe all those "perfect attack" gamers were androids, or mirror match people.

Nearly slipping to keep her dance meter out of the red, Choko looked down to see the chocolate sole of her shoe melt off and slide very sadly off the dance pad. Sniffling, she mourned for her beloved shoe, then steeled her reserve; she could save her precious shoe, but Gus-san needed her to keep dancing! Changing her malleable shoes into unrelenting peanut brittle geta, she shook a fist at the screen and stomped extra hard on the dance pad.

Later, when they had gained their inadequate ranking and saved Gus-san, she helped Emi-san wipe down the dance pad. It was rude to leave a mess, after all.

* * *

"...wait, I know this song!"

"Which one, the screeching one or the scratching one, or the—"

"Not those ones, the good one! It's Butterfly!"

"Oh, I love that song! I thought they took it out!"

"Nope, I guess it's in here, or at least enough of it was dummied out to be kept in the data."

"...I've been searching for a man~"

"Are you guys seriously doing this?"

"All across Japan~"

"I guess you are."

"Just to find my, find my samurai~"

"Wait, singing helps pick out which arrows match..."

"Someone who is strong~"

"And we have to save Baby-Lon..."

"But still a little shy~"

"...and where else are we going to have a reason to break out into song?"

"Yes I need, I need my samurai~"

"AI YAI YAI, I'M YOUR LITTLE BUTTERFLY! GREEN, BLACK AND BLUE, MAKE THE COLORS IN THE SKY~"

* * *

Honey smirked as her dance meter glowed in rainbow colors, her pigtails smacking against her back. Deciding to be cheeky, she pivoted around on a left step, flashing Skrillex a grin as he did a shuffling move to catch a handful of rogue arrows. Choko, feeling left out, dropped in a split kick, holding it as the freed dancers cheered them on. And that began the madness.

Honey held her arms out like a prima ballerina as she span and pivoted, even dancing backwards. Hair swirled around in ribbons, the red C on her back a blur as she worked the dance pad like a skate rink.

Skrillex was less flamboyant in his turns, but he was entirely fluid in his shuffling, feet barely leaving the floor unless he hit the deck to kick out. His glasses flew off his face but he caught them causally with a wrist flick, one with the music.

And Choko was something else entirely. Half disco dancer, half belly flopper, she utilized the quick movements of her short limbs to compensate for the large dance pad, resulting in half-cartwheels and arrows caught with the tip of her finger.

By the time they finished the stage, Yuni-san and the rest of the avatars were cheering wildly, the announcer cutting back in to gush in awe. Rinon broke out of the twisted stage as they were rewarded with an AAA score.

Choko stood up to catch her breath, before asking merrily, "So did we win?"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

In the darkness of the code well, it was usually difficult to pick out problems. Back when he was a lone ranger, Skrillex would spend days combing through DJ Hero 2 to try and find the subtle sparkling glitches that impacted his game's performance.

Not so much with DDR.

At the center of the game's code was a giant spitting mess of leaking data and twisted cables, making gut fill with unease. This was a bit more than he was expecting, even with the music abuse upstairs.

Grabbing onto Honey and Choko's wrists, he swam down into the fray and shoved character code boxes out of the way, sparing them from being corrupted by a free line. Honey quickly started pulling apart the crudest of tangles, Choko diving into the heart of the pink and blue matter. "Ok, make sure to be gentle with separating level data and stage programming. They are very interconnected with these kinds of games and too hard of a break will dummy out the content."

"You have experience with this?" Honey had to use her teeth to convince a glitching data connection that no, mixing two stage designs was a bad idea.

"Like Queen Van said at the beginning of our grand adventures, I'm the guy keeping Guitar Hero and DJ Hero 2 functioning. DDR may be from a different producer, but it's all the same kind of animal." Fok, he chipped his nail polish on a code box. He needed to ask that Sour Appleblossom kid where she got such pretty colors.

"...ok, I have this clump cleared. What about music data?"

"For now keep it where it is unless you really need to disconnect it. We need to match arrow spread layouts to the correct songs, otherwise we have Butterfly playing over Pluto the First's arrows."

"Seriously, _screw _that song! It's never ok to have the arrows pause randomly!"

"皆さん (Mina-san), I found the heart of the problem!"

Skrillex followed Choko's voice to find two code boxes fused together, glowing a malevolent yellow. Two innocent boxes holding the level loading engine and the music memory; separate they made this console of Dance Dance Revolution X2 incredible, but fused together due to years of little glitches adding onto frustrated gamers pounding on the dance deck..."Choko, leave that mess to me. Help Choko sort out which levels go with which songs after I separate this beast..."

He slid into the gap Choko left and plugged his Action Replay into the cancerous growth sticking out of the boxes. Many of the codes were useless for what he needed, but at the bottom of the list was his favorite tool of choice: the Jaws of Life, perfect for emergency code repair.

Grabbing onto the tool, he angled the cutter right above the glitching code boxes, and with a battle cry slammed it downwards. Code splashed and spattered around his face like burning oil as he tore away at the glitch, half-blinded by the angry colors bursting out of the broken code boxes. Turning away to spit out a mouthful of goopy static, he inhaled and dove in deeper, relentless in his pursuit for justice. This was for the avatars stuck in a jacked-up nightmare. This was for every DDR game going unplayed due to Konami saturating the market. This was for every arcade going under due to overhead costs overpowering the declining stream of arcade players. This was for Mr. Litwak's nephew, who gave him life and friends to enjoy it with.

And this..._this_ was for half-adding songs and not letting the fans enjoy the music!

He broke through the glitch and an explosion of junk data blasted him into the lifeblood of DDR, held up by programming cords as the two code boxes reset themselves to their normal states. Choko and Honey were cheering, and he exhaled. That went better than expected.

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope watched Sour Apple showcase a large collection of nail polish to Skrillex, who was in turn offering some of his eyeliner back in his raccoon-eyed emo princess days. Vanellope had tagged Skrillex as a little pretty boy—he was way prettier than Ralph, and it didn't help that he was only a little bit taller than Felix—but she was impressed at how committed he was.

Then Taffyta showed up with her mascara bounty, and Rancis with his famous flugger oil, and Pollipop with her carbonated face cleansers, and suddenly every racer with a secret stash of pretty-making products came out of the candy cane wood work to set up shop in her castle's courtyard. Choko, after fixing her favorite shoes, dove into the fray with her hard biscuit pumice stones, and Vanellope laughed as Honey started haggling with Bubblebetty over her scented bubble bath.

King Candy came onto the balcony with her and sputtered about unsanctioned markets and permits and the need to regulate the trade of gold foil candy coins. Vanellope then asserted that as Queen of Sugar Rush she was establishing a local market every time someone wants to have one, as no one else would really object to that, and he patted her head and and agreed that it was a marvelous idea.

Smiling primly, she watched Marzipanne explain to the others how to properly use a quadruple wanded curling flat iron by using Skrillex and Lemonetta as her guinea pigs. She really loved being Queen of these psycho candy babies sometimes.

* * *

**oni glitch: present in DDR Extreme, this was done deliberately by gamers to access dummied out oni/challenge levels for songs that did not have an oni/challenge difficulty level. As the DDR in Litwak's Arcade is DDR X2, I couldn't use this glitch.**

**何？ ****(Nani)?: What?**

**皆さん ****(Mina-san): everyone**

**And that's their adventure in DDR X2/Dance Dance Revolution X2 (I hope everyone knows what my acronyms are...)**

**As discussed in this chapter, a lot of arcades and arcade games are suffering, especially in the musical dance/rhythm genre, which is why Skrillex and Yuni are concerned about it. Honestly, in this day and age (as stated by Choko, they are now in 2013), arcade characters should be well aware of their situation, and eventual end in a Dave & Busters (going strong, best option), Gameworks (many places have gone out of business...), Chuck E Cheese (probably good, but undesirable with their customer base), grocery store (lowest of the low), or collector's home (cut off from their friends). Litwak's Arcade is a lot like the James Games by my old school: dependable customer base, imported games, and going strong after so many years. So to all the Mr. Litwaks out there, please don't go out of business; as much as I love the Disneyland arcade after WiR came out, it will probably go out of style and Disney will lock up their consoles again.**

**So onto DDR: in that game, you dance to the arrows laid out to the music. Simple enough...except the two are dependent on each other. Put one arrow layout on another song and you have a nightmare track where nothing syncs up. Now mix five songs and five stages together and play them at once...I get nervous thinking about it. This glitch was caused by little arrow trips and glitches adding up like a cancerous growth, unchecked by the game's normally functioning code-cleaning program. DDR machines also suffer a lot of percussion damage from kids stomping too hard and hitting the display monitors, making the glitch worse. Then when some kid, thinking that DDR X2 was DDR Extreme (2), got upset that some fan favorite songs like Butterfly were taken off and smacked around the machine, the glitch growth got bigger and bigger until it fused the music and level data together into a real mess of a glitch, sucking in dance avatars and probably attacking them with deceptively painful arrows that were let loose by the glitch.**

**The Round Robin POV involving dialogue-only can be interpreted as anyone's POV, even Yuni's. Otherwise it's more obvious who's in control.**

**Why yes, I _love_ Butterfly and it's my favorite DDR dance track. Why do you ask.**

**I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and please tell me how I did! :D**


	9. Tekken Tag Tournament 2

***crawls out covered in paper cuts and coffee stains* **

**Remember how I promised to update once I got back to college? Well, college decided to DROP THE BASS and murder me with so much work and exams and finals that any inspiration left over for fanfiction had to go on a back burner. Then I had to move back home, go back to permanent babysitting/kittysitting duty, look for a job and study for my CRP/AED/First Aid certificate. Not to mention I've been on the most extreme and obsessive Iron Man 3/Avengers bender. Seriously, I created about five fanfic ideas and an entirely unique universe because freaking Robert Downey Jr. is my lord and savior, and he and Mark Ruffalo are so fabulous and Science Bromantic and perfect, and if I have anymore Pepperony feels I'm going to open my own pizza place.**

**...but I digress. I watched WiR again today, ate a powdered donut, and I have a game I want to explore. Sorry to keep you all waiting!**

**Heads up: LOTS of Japanese dialogue here. Instead of weighing everything down with gratuitous Japanese to phonetic romaji to translated English, I'm just gonna write what they're saying. Sorry Choko-chan, but there's a limit to your language gimmick. **

**Disclaimers: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, Acitivision owns DJ Hero 2 (but not a console port), and Namco Bandai owns the Tekken franchise, of which I adore.**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Choko swung her legs under the bottle cap bar stool, patiently waiting for her vanilla-lime soda-cool whip soda float. Pollipop-chan had dominated the races today, and as a show of good will, she invited all the Sugar Rush racers and outside friends to her private soda fountain to indulge in carbonated chaos. Sour Apple-chan, for example, was holding up the line for her suicide cream soda, and Choko idly wondered how long it would take her to crash from the monstrosity's sugar content.

Vanellope-heika was hanging off of Ralph-san's shoulders, ranting about how it wasn't fair that she could have a double shot of root beer in Sugar Rush and not Tapper's. Ralph-san was trying very hard not to laugh—Vanellope-heika wasn't the most...composed after consuming large amounts of sugar—and Choko giggled as her sovereign racer made herself comfy on his head.

Honey-chan and Lemonetta-chan were having a very deep conversation about something called "friend zoning", Minty-chan and Jubileena-chan were comparing hair styling tips with Skrillex-kun, and Choko relaxed; life was good.

So when Sour Bill-san led a teenage school girl in pigtails dragging her injured robot friend through the doors, Choko merely motioned for Pollipop-chan to put her order on hold; she never went through a cycle of idle animations for a reason. "Are you here for soda or Codebusting, Miss?"

"[My friend and I need your help!]"

Choko blinked as everyone turned towards her for guidance. Oh, right, she was the only conscious Japanese speaker in the house. "[How can I help you?]"

The pink haired robot girl raised tired green eyes. "[Please forgive us for interrupting, but our friends are trying to kill us.]". She smiled before her head fell off, and everyone started running around like headless chickens; Vanellope-heika had to use her patented "I'm the Presidential Queen and you will all listen to me" voice King Candy had been helping her out with before Swizzle-kun stopped firing unicorn pop guns at everything that moved.

"Choko, you and the Codebusters fix whatever game issue they're having. Peggy Pigtails, please pick up your friend's head, it's blinking at me. Ralph, let me down; I'm not a little diaper baby who needs a bottle. And Miss Fizzy, get everyone a double shot on me. We all just need some sugar to calm down."

* * *

It turned out that "Peggy Pigtails" was a Ling Xiaoyu-san (or just Xiao-san, as she preferred) from Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and as part of their game's linguistic gimmick, could only squeal in Japanese lifted from a sappy 少女の漫画 (shoujo no manga). Choko liked her; anyone who both knew her native language and could carry around her friend's sentient head without a pause was good in her book.

Skrillex-kun straightened his glasses as Choko drove them to Xiao-san's game. "So what are we going up against?"

"Judging from the damage dealt to Ms. Detachable Head, I'm guessing the something went way past wrong with the battle AI." Honey-chan was fiddling with the back of the robot's—Alisa-san, according to Xiao-san—head, and sighed. "Once, back when I was a pixel stick, all the functioning mirror images in my game spilled out and started going crazy. My Sonic and Dr. Robotnik managed to fix them before they went Turbo. Then again, mirror images are a different breed of fighter..."

"That reminds me: do you guys actually get injured during normal game play?" The memory of Honey-chan breaking her leg sat heavily over their code busting minds for a moment.

"Not when the proper code sequences run. Otherwise we'd actually get hit damage, and I don't care how hard your head is; there wouldn't be a fighting game running after three hours of abuse."

Xiao-san blushed and tugged on a pigtail, "[My friend Jin is very stubborn. I think he would last for three hours.]"

Choko giggled with Alisa-san then translated for her friends, Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan sharing a significant glance. Waving to the Surge Protector, she sped through the cord leading to Tekken Tag 2. Her friends could make eyebrows at each other all day; she and Xiao-chan were well versed in the tragedies of head strong friends who crashed through games without concern for their squishy bodies.

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey looked up from her character roster sheet to see a very large black demon thing maul a panda. The panda proceeded to tackle the demon into a snooty blonde girl, who flipped her internal coffee table and beat the pixels out of them. Blinking slowly, she stepped away from the free for all, grabbing onto Choko's small shoulder. "Ok, Alisa wasn't lying: everyone is trying to kill everyone. I have a few ideas why but we need to beat a level before we can get to the code well."

Skrillex was being antagonized by the more Amazon-y fighters, and Honey felt for him; the poor bastard was 5'4" in the tallest of games, and here he was a pitiful 4'3". "Skrill, don't look them in the eye. They see that as a challenge."

He blushed fiercely, his bright red nose contrasting against his hair."But if I don't look at their faces, my direct line of sight—"

Skrillex didn't finish before one of the more Russian-y Amazons punted him into a wall. Groaning in frustration, she balled up her sheet and threw it at Xiaoyu's too bubbly head. Why the flipping Chaos did this game have over 50 characters? What, were these young whippersnappers too afraid to leave the fighting academy without their entire class before going into a game? Back in her day, you only needed 9 on the roster to have a good time, and she wasn't even around for it!

Yelling in inarticulate rage, she judo flipped a charging Bruce Lee wannabe into a wall, triggering a loud bell. "Wait, what did I just do?"

Xiaoyu bounced over to her, clapping her hands. While Honey knew Japanese better than say, Emo Princess, Choko helpfully translated the Chinese(?) girl's rambling into "The game just recognized you as a special challenger! Now you can fight!"

Honey cracked her knuckles as the sea of rabid-AI fighters stopped thrashing and turned towards her like a bad horror movie. "Well, I guess I'm in for the tournament. How many do I have to fight before I can get to the code well?"

"Hmm, if we play arcade mode on one round matches and the extra fighters don't interfere, and Alisa-chan and someone else as our backup in case we get too broken...about nine stages." She spared a glance towards Skrillex and Choko, and Honey stifled a giggle. "Perhaps...Choko-chan could pair well with Alisa-chan?"

"Fine by me." Skrillex wiped clean his glasses, sniffing past a crooked nose. "But does that mean I'm on crowd control?"

"Come on Mr. Screamo, you know all about pandering to a group of overly aggressive and emotionally constipated pretty folk in funny costumes." Honey pinched his cheek and fixed his nose with a spurt of pixels, then turned towards a grinning Xiaoyu. "Sooo, you gonna fight in your day clothes? Because my other outfit has wings, and you look like a flying fan."

* * *

Honey didn't wake up expecting to fight outside of her game. Much less with a hyperactive battle queen, whose orange qipao was much more war fashion friendly and had enthusiasm that could put Amy to shame. But then again, it beat listening to Bear and Bean gripe about how nobody took them seriously anymore.

Alisa and Honey were cheering in a strange queue area that sprung up, protected from the growling, jerking horde of zombie fighters that wanted a piece of honey-dipped Honey. Well, they were free to look/death glare, but touching/trying to claw out her eyes with freaky chakra devil claws was an entirely different beast.

First up was Kazuya/Angry Asian Bad Boy #3 and Anna/Owes Sonny a New Nose, and ho boy, they were salivating with the chance to murderize them. Honey was on the tag partner position off stage and counted down before the match began with clenched fists; this was going to get ugly.

Kazuya lurched forward but Xiaoyu executed a folding fan-palm to the pectorals combo that knocked him into the boundary. Ok, Honey liked this girl a whole bunch. Jumping up quickly, Xiaoyu kick flipped off his face before he could grab her ankle, kicking out his shins before he could switch with Anna. Hard back-facing punches to the brunette had her flying up in the air, and a satisfying low kick avenged Skrillex's nose.

Then Anna roared and turned purple, picking up Xiaoyu and throwing her against their side of the boundary. Her health plummeted and Honey tagged herself in, yelling in code because that was total BS, where did this psycho power-up even come from?! Honey flew directly into Anna's pelvis, knocking them into the center of the stage. Anna didn't have the benefits of mercy invincibility, so Honey elected to fly-spam the psycho out of her.

She managed to roll out of her hit box and punched Honey square in the nose, and holy crap that stung. Stupid poisonous purple aura of doom. Subconsciously tapping into the old Amy fight data in her file banks, she bootie bopped Anna into the boundary, and a shower of rings exploded for a double hit. Huh. Flexing her back muscles, Honey charged into Anna and another, slightly smaller shower of rings fell from nowhere to bring Anna's health down.

Honey tilted her head back and laughed maniacally. The game gave her special abilities! Oh, this was too good. Winking at a cheering Alisa and Choko, Honey went to town on Anna, using some of Xiaoyu's back-kicking and Knuckles' I'm-gonna-wreck-your-face punches to her advantage. Oh yes, she was so cheating but Anna had her freaky out of bounds purple glow and screw the rules, she had lots of rings!

Anna managed to tag herself out with Bad Boy Wonder, and Honey remembered why Xiaoyu and Alisa came in the first place. He didn't pull the punch that darn near cratered her face in, kicking the Chaos out of her gut like she was a soccer ball piñata.

Refusing to be KO'ed in the first round, Honey kicked him into the air, and Xiaoyu introduced her to the beauty of Tekken Tag Tournament 2. She jumped in to complete the combo Honey was setting up, and they switched off between up slams and kidney kicks until he hit the ground and didn't bounce back up. They cheered and high fived, Xiaoyu more or less trash talking to poor suckers in Japanese.

The obviously purple glow exploded out of Kazuya and Anna in an obviously evil plume, absorbing back into the waiting masses. Then the two started flopping around on the ground like fishes; they were yelling for someone to tell them why exactly they couldn't stop flapping on the ground, so Honey figured this wasn't a normal game mechanic. "Umm, next round?"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex loved angry crowds he could turn into wicked crowds thrashing to his personal mix of dubstep and Transformer death metal. So when he hacked into the soundtrack for the stage music and decided to practice his DJing skills, he took most of the credit for turning the killbot zombies into dancing killbot zombies.

Over the demon death din of "Kill Everybody"—hey, it was incredibly appropriate—Choko unceremoniously dumped two fishtailing fighters behind his booth, washing her sugar sticky hands clean of their shenanigans. The woman who punched his nose apologized profusely for her unsportsmanlike conduct, and he gave her a free pass because it wasn't her fault that she was a former killbot and she was hot as ever loving hell.

He couldn't figure out how to keep them from glitching, chalking it up o the weird purple virus upsetting their animation cycles. Shrugging, she gently pushed them into a corner and put the music on auto, letting the killbots dance themselves docile and watching Honey and Xiaoyu beat the crap out of them.

Skrillex admitted that Honey was in the zone. No broken legs or falling into bottomless pits here: she and her partner managed to infinite combo the Stage 3 fighter into a perfect KO. More and more former killbots flopped apologetically in a sad little corner, but Skrillex frowned as more fighters kept breaking into the stage to prolong the ass-kicking. Choko and Alisa tried to keep them from screwing up the roster rotation, but Skrillex shook his head; music couldn't soothe the savage killbot zombie beast of that stupid purple virus could manipulate the arcade mode.

On what was "Stage 5" but was totally Stage 9, Honey and Xiaoyu fought against a pretty Asian boy and what appeared to be the badass demon version of him. In that round Xiaoyu got the crap kicked out of her; from his viewpoint it looked like she was pulling her punches. Honey managed to high kick them to oblivion, but he knew a reluctant heroine when he was one.

They flopped their way to his booth, and Skrillex pulled the pretty boy aside; his demon pal was too busy shouting the lyrics to Cinema, and he didn't wanna break his concentration. "Nice to meet you, knuckle duster. My name's Sonny; what's yours?"

"...Jin." Oh good Betamax, this just got better and better.

"Let's talk in private Jin, the crowd's just a bit too loud for this venue." It was true; Devil Jin took over the music with an androgynous blonde fighter, and the wild energy from "Bangarang" was entertaining the killbot zombies. Below the stage he brought into existence—thank Honey for teaching him the wonderful world of abusing Action Replays—he pushed Jin onto a recliner, taking up space on a stock folding chair. "Impressive fighting moves, how much do you gotta train to leverage teenage girls into boundary walls?"

"I had to master the Mishima style of karate to defeat my father, grandfather and great-grandfather in order to stop myself from turning into a Demon—"

"That's currently making a new name for himself as a DJ"

"—and avenge my mother, who was taken from me by Ogre—"

"I think she's starting a mosh pit in front of the battle stage"

"—and I've told Xiaoyu to stay away before I hurt her, so it's not my fault if she—"

Skrillex hit him on the head with his roster sheet, stopping Jin's melodramatic life story from really taking off. He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his head, mumbling, "Or that's what the game writers said. Personally, I just like training with Hwoarang and Nina and—"

"Xiaoyu?" Jin stiffened as much as he could without having control over his movements, and Skrillex wrote down a note on the back of his roster. "Let's focus on her. You do know she almost let you and your wild side kick her perky bubble butt to the loser's circle, right?"

"Yes, well—"

"Such a sweet girl, and super pretty." Skrillex grinned as Jin's already agonized face grew even more emo, and examined his fingernails. Fok, he needed more red apple pie nail polish from Sour Apple. "I'm more appreciative of blondes myself, but she's built like a mini-brick—"

"DON'T YOU SPEAK OF HER WITH SUCH LEWD WORDS!"

Skrillex wrote down another note. "Oh, so you do care about her? I couldn't see that during the battle or after. She sure does care though, enough to not fight back when you were compromised."

Jin looked like he was having a heart attack, battling against the pre-programmed personality that he took way too much to heart. But if Ralph could become a hero in his own right, then Jin could work his way out of his emotional constipation. "I...between my overbearing mother and my jerk of a grandfather I don't want her around and she's so colorful and bright and lively and she just lights up the room and Hwoarang already threatened to shave my head if I didn't...but..." He managed to gesture at himself as he flipped about in the air. "Why would she ever want me?"

Skrillex sighed, slowly shaking his head. "Did you hear her calling for you after Honey kicked your butt?"

"...yes?"

"Does she always call after you after you fight?"

"...yes."

"Alright, now I need you to imagine her standing right next to us. What is she doing?"

"...calling out...to me—"

"If you can hear her now, why don't you recall that she was one who cared after all?"

Jin had half a moment to appreciate his super epic wisdom before the crowd upstairs exploded. The androgynous blonde from before beat their door down, yelling loudly, "They made it to the boss stage!"

Jin grumbled about mothers and cheesy dubstep and Skrillex tucked his roster sheet away. Better go spread his wisdom to the rest of the plebes.

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

The stage transformed into a beautiful water lily garden, steam rising up to obscure the tall, dark 美女 (bijo) smiling serenely at Honey-chan and Xiao-chan. Her eyes glowed a dangerous purple, and with the smile still on her face, she literally kicked the two into submission.

Alisa-chan grabbed onto Choko's hand. "[If they KO, we'll have to go in for them!]"

"[Don't worry, Alisa-chan, Honey-chan is too proud to let anyone best her in battle.]"

Honey-chan then proceeded to fly into the woman's stomach, Xiao-chan tag in and out repeatedly to kick the 美女 (bijo) harder and harder into the ground before she finally KO'ed. "[Yes, my friend Xiao-san is also very...tenacious.]"

Honey-chan and Xiao-chan held hands and jumped in tandem, laughing like Minty-chan and Sour Apple-chan after a good race. "[Tenacious is a very good word.]"

The woman was on her hands and knees in the water, panting harshly. Then the purple in her eyes began to spread into the stage, warping the water lily garden into a poisonous nightmare as the 美女 (bijo) turned into a 鬼女 (kijo), laughing and snarling like a power mad villainess...

Like a power mad boss sequence, glitching into the chaos that Honey-chan often swore by.

The new woman, "Unknown", started off by kicking Xiao-chan into the murky sludge, the purple ink ticking to her body and gluing her to the ground so Unknown could spam-kick her to death. Honey-chan tagged herself in and righteously pelvis-slammed Unknown into the murk herself, although the laughing woman didn't get stuck. So unfair, it was like racing against Vanellope-heika on boss mode.

Unknown pinned Honey-chan down into the murk and began kicking her to death, howling with laughter the entire time like the banshees that ghosted Gloyd-kun's track. Her friends' health hit zero and Alisa-chan grabbed onto her elbow. "[Are you ready, Choko-san?]"

Xiao-chan spit out a tooth. "[At least I have that down to an art.]"

They jumped into the murky water as the game gonged with Choko's arrival. The flailing fighters beyond the stage cheering them on, and Choko changed into her peanut brittle geta. Between Unknown not wearing real clothing and the way leather soles tended to sink into sludge, she needed all the advantage she could get.

Choko wanted to set something straight. She has never been, and probably never will be, a good fighter. But while her speed in Sugar Rush came from racing, she was programmed with very quick feet, and Unknown moved slowly in her self-made purple quagmire.

Alisa-chan hip kicked Unknown to the ground and threw her head at her, adding an explosive burst to her attack. Choko mentally added explosive cookie biscuits to her list of kart updates. Quickly tagging in, Choko tripped Unknown and tagged out, playing run-rings-around-the-rusty until Alisa-chan managed to bring Unknown's health down to 50%. Then the creature growled and threw Alisa-chan against the boundary with a tidal wave of poison, and that wasn't really nice.

Choko jumped back into the mess and kicked Unknown's shin, scratching damage onto her indecent living wetsuit. She howled and really, why did all these fighting game bosses howl and groan like Rancis-kun with a stomach ache. And what did she have to complain about? Oh, her glitchy attempt at world rageification isn't going to well? At least she didn't have to deal with a group of angry pocky people arguing over localization cameos, or Taffyta-chan bossing everyone from Vanellope-heika to Ralph-san, or Marzipanne-chan launching her car into the roof of the castle and wondering why Sour Bill-san was so annoyed! Really, between Sugar Rush and the squishy retards on her team Choko got so frustrated sometimes, and—why was Alisa-chan giggling?

Looking down, she noticed that Unknown was a sad heap of scratched up goop, her geta innocently dripping with purple. Honey-chan was rolling around on the ground laughing with Xiao-chan, and all the spectating fighters were flopping around with glee instead of faulty character physics.

Blushing, Choko stepped back ready for the stage to end...until Unknown let out a screech so loud Choko could feel the sugar in her bun crystallize. All the muck from the ground swirled up to cover Unknown's body, creating a gigantic vortex of evil glitching power ready to take over the entire arcade. Choko grabbed onto Alisa-chan's hand, preparing herself for the most difficult battle of her life—

A gong sounded as a giant set of stereos crashed down onto Unknown, releasing a large bass rumble that obliterated the purple sludge and triggered the cut scene for Unknown's defeat. Everyone looked up to see Skrillex standing sheepishly on a raised platform. "What can I say, sometimes you really just need to drop the bass."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope slurped her vanilla-mint-chocolate-diet cola concoction as she watched the gentle mayhem in Pollipop's promenade. After the Codebusters reset the Unknown data in Jun Kazama's data, the entire population of over muscled fighters turned back to normal, and proceeded to suffer a severe lack of sugar and electrolytes. Luckily Pollipop had a large stash of Gatorade for her nitro boosts, and all the guys from Tekken Tag Tournament 2 decided to come for a diplomatic visit.

Xiaoyu/Peggy Pigtails in particular was very happy, bouncing along with Alisa/her headless friend and a—sweet mother of monkey milk, was that a giant panda?! Shoving her drink into Sour Apple's greedy little hands, she jumped onto the panda's back, pointing her scepter towards the general unknown. "Onward, Marshmallow Butt!"

The panda bucked her off into Ralph's overly concerned arms, and Vanellope cheered. "Do it again!"

While Ralph and King Candy fussed—jeez, did they think she was made out of rice paper?—she saw Jin Kazama/big fat diaper baby awkwardly try and talk to Peggy Pigtails in a quiet corner, who was blushing redder than a gumball dispenser. They passed Japanese back and forth for a bit, diaper baby looking like he'd eaten way too many moon pies, before Peggy Pigtails more or less glomped the loser and slapped a big fat Hershey's kiss on him.

Everyone froze—the racers thought that kissing beyond cheek kissing was gross and the fighters obviously knew about this little love-fest—before Hwoarang/the guy who just ate his weight in atomic fireballs yelled loudly, "Somebody owes me five bucks!"

Money was exchanged as rapidly as Pollipop's famous third-wheel wintermint smoothies, and Vanellope spotted her Codebusters in the chaos. Choko was sighing wistfully, probably thinking about a blue raspberry boy across the arcade. Honey was collecting money with the robot girl and Leo/the blonde Vanellope was pretty sure was a girl. And Skrillex was smugger than a sour patch snake, very much not making oogaly faces Peggy Pigtails.

Vanellope laughed and tipped Pollipop with a vanilla wafer. Tomorrow was fast approaching, and if anyone was going to survive with their marble cake intact, they needed all the sugar they could get.

* * *

**少女の漫画 ****(shoujo no manga): manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10 and 18, often with a strong focus on human and romantic relationships and emotions.**

**美女 ****(bijo): beautiful woman.**

**鬼女 ****(kijo): witch/demon. (u c wat I did thar)**

**Oh yes, this all just happened. No, I regret nothing.**

**Tekken Tournament 2 is basically a fighting game where you beat up people with two characters. Normally you fight with one, but as a tag team game, there's combos where you switch off quickly and add onto each other's moves, do team throws, etc. The final boss of the game is Jun Kazama, mother of the protagonist Jin (who has lots of emotional issues and just needs to stop pushing people away and get together with Xiaoyu -pouts-) who turns into this creepy stripperific villain called Unknown. In the first arcade version released, Unknown isn't a character like Jun. Therefore, that boss sequence in her code messed up, became half-sentient and attacked the AI of the game, making everyone into killbot zombies. In normal game play no one would notice, but after hours...**

**Also, the flopping is a reference to another glitch in TTT2. Basically, if you hit a character very precisely (or in this case, exorcise them of a purple glitch virus) they cycle through every animation they have in the game. Look it up, it's kinda funny.**

**I've been waiting to drop the bass in the literal sense for so long it's ridiculous. And if you think that's ridiculous, hold onto your hat, because next chapter is a whole new world for the Codebusters ;)**

**Loved it? Hated it? Want Pollipop's drink recipes? Then review and let me know how I did :D**


	10. Minecraft

**Ok guys, here's where things get fun.**

**I've planned to do this ever since Gratitude, and I'm so happy to get to this point despite my horrible updating schedule and fickle Muse. Save all "WTF that's not how the arcade works you hack!" for the end please, and hold on to your hats, because it just keeps going on from here.**

**Disclaimer: Disney owns Sugar Rush, SEGA owns Sonic the Fighters, Activision owns DJ Hero 2, and Mojang owns Minecraft**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Choko Pockystix allowed herself to be prideful of a few things. She was a high tier racer and penultimate boss, she was the best candy-based ikebana enthusiast in her class, and she was devoted to her job as a Codebuster.

So when her Action Replay, tucked safely in the lapel of her racing kimono, began to buzz during the day, she didn't react beyond wondering why the Surge Protector was calling her during arcade hours.

That feature was added during the creation of the Action Replays; to grant the Codebusters the clearance to use special skeleton key game modifiers, the Surge had the right to summon them at any time in case a really big glitch occurred. Seeing how the video game characters from the affected games like to call on the code busting business themselves, Choko felt a slow trickle of apprehension make its way down her spine.

Luckily, she wasn't on today's roster, and once their player finished his free-play race, she jumped out of her cart to the reigning racer's side. "Vanellope-heika, the Surge Protector is calling!"

"Oh pixy sticks." Vanellope-heika removed her helmet as she jumped out of her cart. "Call up the other two and get your butt in gear. We can skip you in story mode if need be, but I'll make you do laps in Diet Cola Mountain if you don't hurry back!"

Choko, unsure if her Queen was serious, jumped back into her cart and made her way home for the Codemobile. Double checking that there were no road cops to catch her, she started tapping away on her Action Replay. Skrillex-kun asserted that if Surge could reach them through their cartridges, they should be able to text each other as well. "Choko here. What is everyone's status?"

"In mid of fight. Can has text l8r."

"on standby club. lol thought we didnt do this during day"

"Well, it must be important if I had to be called out of a race. Speaking of which, can you guys leave work early?"

"i can remove myself from roster if needed. lame as hell tho"

"K back. I can get mirror to do fights."

"Well, I'm on my way out of Sugar Rush."

"telling suri i'm bailing. meet u guys there"

"Omw too."

Choko quickly changed into her uniform and headed out in her Codemobile, staying clear of the racers tearing up her level. While it royally sucked to subvert her original purpose, she had a job to do and the Surge Protector was getting antsy with the buzzing. Kicking up static in her titanium-cookie alloy wheels, she braked in the exit port to avoid murdering the Surge Protector's avatar. "What's the problem, sir? Is my team here yet?"

Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan bounded into the loading station, uniforms slightly askew. "Let's get this guys, I have a returning fan coming in today at 5."

The Surge nodded gravely and led them to the base of GCS. "Approximately ten minutes ago, a large group of unknown creatures piled into the main station and tried to game jump during arcade hours. I locked them out of the other ports to keep them from disrupting normal game play, but then they started getting...rowdy."

"Rowdy, what kind of row—"

A large group of strange green block monsters began spilling out of the containment space Surge had been corralling them in. They were eerily silent in the brightly lit station, and Choko backed up towards her cart. "I've never seen people like them before."

Honey-chan cocked her head and poked one in the chest. "They feel like...dry grass? And those faces are super creepy. Sonny, you know any games that would have these for enemies?"

Skrillex-kun didn't answer. He was staring at one with a blank expression, his fingers twitching as if he was elbow deep in code. "Sonny-kun, are you..."

"They're not from an arcade game."

There was a moment of silence

"What?!"

But before Honey-chan could beat the answers out of somebody, one of the monsters exploded. The shockwave knocked Choko into the air over her cart, the Surge enacting a station-wide alarm that cut off the plugs from access. Now they were trapped with the monsters, who were quickly swarming over a still shock-still Skrillex-kun. Honey-chan grabbed his arm before one could detonate in his face, and the two were blasted into an information kiosk.

One of the...the creepers jumped into the Codemobile and Choko dragged herself out of a crater. "Get out of my cart! You are NOT authorized to drive a pocky stick shift!"

The creeper circled around the craters, picking up its buddies as they tried to escape. But the Surge Protector killed the ports to the games, they were trapped and doomed to suffer Honey-chan's wrath. That was, if Choko didn't get there first. "私の車から出て行け！野郎！"(Watashi no karuma kara deteike! Yarou!)

Honey-chan managed to trip up the from wheel of the cart, allowing Choko to jump into the backseat. One of the creepers began to detonate so she kicked it out of her cart, inadvertently destroying the info kiosk in the resulting explosion. "Guys, I need some help here!"

Honey-chan dragged Skrillex-kun in front of the cart, jumping on to the hood when the driving creeper tried to run them over into a fine paste. Punching and scratching for control, the Codebusters didn't notice the Surge screaming at them to stop. A large flash of light blinded them for a moment, allowing the driver to drive off down a dark tunnel towards the unknown.

"Honey-chan! Get the wheel!" Choko was being crushed under the unrelenting creeper swarm, which was pathetic considering they didn't have any arms.

The battle mistress of their group threw a creeper out of the cart, the entire tunnel shaking with its detonation. "Which game are we going into?"

"Hopefully one that's not busy!" Neon lights flashed by in a symphony of color and static, and Choko lost her train of thought. Where were they, it was...it was so beautiful here. Electricity brushed by her face, and it felt like the sugar silk curtains draping her windows back home. "Honey-chan...where are we?"

Her friend stopped fighting to breathe in the static, eyes blown wide as light poured through her mouth to expel golden static out her finger tips. "This isn't any game I've ever been in."

Skrillex-kun was still in shock, hair blowing around his face as the cart surged towards a large white portal. Choko pinched his hand, trying to wake him up, but then there was that bright light and she couldn't see. They were back in GCS, heading towards the first outlet on the left, and Choko weakly punched the driver's seat. "No don't...that's not a game...it's a ski-ball."

They surged up the cord and Honey-chan blinked the static out of her eyes. "Where the hell are you taking us, ugly! Get the hell out of our cart!"

Honey-chan attacked the creepers and they swarmed her, vicious cursed muffled under the sea of crunch green blocks. Choko squeezed her eyes shut—the ski-ball computer was a very cramped place, it was going to get painful—and braced for impact. She frowned when they didn't crash but entered a strange blue place, the cart blasting through a portal before she could figure out where in marzipan-coasted madness they were.

The cart finally entered a large grassy plain, running into a tree and expelling all of its occupants. The creepers jumped around in anger before re-flipping the cart and gunning the engine. Choko screamed in outrage, picking up a block of...wood? it was wood, and throwing it after them. It hit a creeper on the head but they drove off into the distance.

Sighing—they could always make another cart, but she missed her baby—she turned towards Honey-chan and Skrillex-kun, and did a double take. "何ですか？" (Nandesuka).

They were made out of blocks. Looking down, she saw that she had stubby block arms and stubby block legs, her Action Replay missing from her chest. Whirling around in fear, she opened up a submenu to check her inventory, and that was weird, she didn't have a submenu outside of her palette switch costume menu. But that could wait, because her Action Replay was gone. "Honey-chan, they took my Action Replay!"

"Great, just perfect. Come on Princess, Choko's down a cartridge and we have a job to do." Honey-chan tried pinching his cheek but ended up punching him in the face, depleting one of his...hearts? They had hearts. "What the hell is going on. Is this some freaky imported Nintendo console?"

Skrillex-kun sat up. "Beta 1.5_01 (30 fps, 30 chunk updates). C: 451/5408. F: 1063, 0: 0, E:3894. E: 3/219, B: 0, I: 216. P: 0, T: All: 291. ChunkCache: 1024. x: 81.40779807329609. y: 67.00986 z: 1.009084710. Used Memory: 20% (190MB) of 910MB. Allocated memory: 52% (478MB)."

"...what."

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey's eye twitched as Skillex fizzled on the ground, code data pouring out of his mouth like verbal diarrhea. Choko was quietly giving into Chaos on the side, picking up blocks and adding them to her inventory to make up for the loss of her Action Replay. They had inventory screens and hearts and they were made of blocks along with the rest of the world and Honey wanted to go home and rant to Sonic about how crappy her day has been. Speaking of which.."Skillex, if you do not start talking like a person, I will hit you."

"Single Player Commands accessed. Damage now off. /search Codemobile."

She punched him in the nose with all the grace her blocky arm had, and he flashed red briefly before falling on a pig. The pig was wall-eyed and adorable, but it was made of blocks and she hated blocks. "EARTH TO SONNY. What in the name of Chaos Control is going on here?"

He blinked before shrieking, running around in circles. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god we are so screwed the antiviruses are going to find us we need to get—"

She shook him like a rag doll. "WHERE. ARE WE."

"We're in a computer game!" Honey let him fall in shock as he babbled on in hysteria, "I can see all the code, it's in my brain and it's all I can think! They're driving off in a northeast direction, approx. 50,000 blocks away from us, and they're cheating because the person playing Steve? modded the game and I can see everything happening there's a creeper approaching from the cave approx. 200 blocks to our right creeper explosion disable and I think I'm losing it because I can't...I can't..."

Honey hugged him close, blocks sliding together as she tried to keep him from completely going insane. She watched her best friend lose his mind over eleven years, and she'd be damned to a life in slow motion if she let Skrillex fall apart. True to his word, another creeper showed up, but at least this one didn't try blowing them up on contact. "Speak or I'll rebuild you."

"Oh snap, you guys aren't the player, aren't you." His expression didn't change, but his voice spoke volumes of embarrassment. "Ah jeez, you don't even look like him. You should've warned us before the day started if you were game jumping from The Sims..."

Honey froze. _The Sims?_ The creeper shuffled a little closer. "You guys are from The Sims, right?"

Choko pocketed a dandelion. "I'm from Sugar Rush, my yellow-furred friend is from Sonic the Fighters, and my black-haired friend is from DJ Hero 2. This is assuming we're still in Litwak's Arcade, of course."

The creeper jumped in the air, before exclaiming, "You're arcade game people! I didn't—where did—no where's still in—how did you guys get here?!"

"A group of your creepy friends broke into Game Central Station, stole our cart, drove us through electro-Narnia to here, where my friend is having a breakdown because he was created on a computer and is having a massive overload of CPU information." Skrillex was calmer now, mumbling cheat commands into her shoulder, and Honey patted his blocky head.

"Creepers did this? But who..." He began to shake. "JOE!"

"Please don't explode, it's bad for your eardrums." Now Choko was collecting sand.

The creeper calmed down and sighed, shaking his head. "Oh Herobrine, I am SO sorry about this. Joe and his gang are real bad eggs, they love stealing stuff and throwing it into the Far Lands...hey computer guy? Think you can teleport us to the edge of the world? I'll help you get your stuff back, I know where these guys like to creep."

Skrillex lifted his head, the blank expression back on his face. Everyone instinctively held on to his blocky frame, and as he teleported them out of the plain, Honey wondered when her life got so complicated.

* * *

Blocks rained from the sky as they landed on the ground, and Honey could feel static creeping up her spine to raise non-existent hairs. The land was...broken was the best word. Chunks of earth floated in the sky and she could see through the ground to the sea below. By the power of Chaos, the glitch void she was frozen in didn't look this busted. "Do you see the creeps anywhere, Choko?"

Choko was standing in the opposite direction, eyes wide and unseeing. Honey turned around and NO NO NO NO WRONG IT WAS WRONG IT WAS BROKEN AND CORRUPTED. Honey gasped for air as a swelling sickness froze her stomach, and NO NO DON'T LOOK IT'S FORBIDDEN IT'S WRONG DON'T TOUCH. Skrillex was still in Data-mode, but how could he not see the WRONG IT'S WRONG BROKEN CORRUPTED GLITCH.

Grabbing Choko close—she was only up to her waist now, Skrillex to her shoulder—she turned towards the creeper. "What is...that?"

"Those are the Far Lands, the end of the world." The Creeper managed to shrug without shoulders. "It's disgusting to look at, but players think it's cool and Joe comes here because no one else will. The name's Horatio, by the way. Horatio Ignatius Robert P. Creeper...I just kinda go by Bob."

"Well, Bob, I'm sad we didn't meet under better circumstances." Honey gently shook Choko before leading her towards a ground of pigs on a relatively functioning plot of sand. "Choko's out; last year a virus broke her game and turned it into its own brand of Far Lands. You think she'll be safe here?"

"The dark corners here spawn a lot of mobs, but they'll leave her alone once they see she's not the player." Choko dimly patted one of the pigs. "She'll be fine."

Honey gulped and turned back towards the WRONG BAD BROKEN GLITCH wall of earth, and gripped on to Skrillex's arm. "Let's go get the car back before I start losing it."

With that they walked into an opening and Honey let go of her friend to flail her arms. Bob thankfully let her self soothe in peace, and kept up a merry commentary as they walked through a STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING GO BACK IT'S BAD WRONG canyon. "This is actually a relatively old version of Minecraft, since the 1.8 update got rid of these...well, these unique geographic features. I think Mr. Litwak's nephew is coming next week to finally bring us up to date—yes, we are still in Litwak's Arcade! We're in the computer, where storage used to be before Mr. Litwak got that storage place a few years back. Joe must've gone through the mainframe to get to your power strip..."

Gravel rained down and Honey wanted to cry. "I've never met an arcade game person before. There's five computers on our strip and five on the other, and we make short jumps between those two, but never out of the actual room. What was it like in the electrical system?"

The memory of the lights took the edge off Honey's mental breakdown. "Beautiful. I've never seen anything like it before. It was right, not WRONG WRONG WRONG—"

"Do you like coffee? Terminal 3 has all the Tycoon games, and Mall Tycoon has coffee shops. Once we get your cart back, we'll go get a cup and calm your nerves before you self destruct. There's lots of games here, I'm surprised neither of the game rooms know about each other, but that's what happens when Surge Protectors don't let inter-electrical travel. Granted, Joe demonstrated why, and...JOE!"

Honey saw the creepers who took the Codemobile and snapped. Before Bob could hope to catch up, she was in the middle of a fight, beating them flashing red until they tried to detonate on her. "Na na na, that's not gonna WORK, butt munchers! Damage is off and you TOOK our car and it's WRONG WRONG WRONG and now you're gonna DIE!"

The leader creeper, Joe, took off into a hole in the wall of the NO DON'T GO IN THERE IT'S BAD AND NO NO NO canyon, his buddies exploding with glee around her. By the time the smoke cleared Joe was gone with the car and Choko's Action Replay again. "Now where is he going?"

"In the Corner Far Lands." Bob calmly waited for Honey to stop twitching. "It's a place where lands are stacked on top of each other, so there's lots of dark places for creepers to creep over there. Luckily, nobody likes Joe because he's a jerk, so let's go smoke him out."

"Light now turned on." Everything was suddenly free of shadow, and Honey patted Skrillex on the shoulder in thanks.

They walked through the hole into a more "normal" looking area even though the roof of Honey's mouth was crawling with disgust, and Bob called out to the large mob of creepers, zombies and skeletons, "Has anyone seen Joe? He stole stuff from outside game people."

"Freaking Joe Spunk!" One of the zombies groaned and tripped as he lagged over a gravel block. "Bastard stole my sister's earrings last week!"

"He blew up my corner of the cave!" A skeleton shot an arrow at a large hole in a wall.

"Joe Spunk glitched a cloud into fogging up the waterhole."

"Joe Spunk steals diamonds from the children's charity."

"Joe Spunk keeps people from respawning by their homes."

"Joe Spunk is a bad baaad man."

Honey screamed and ran into the hole, frothing with rage because Joe Spunk was MEAN and EVIL and WRONG in this WRONG BROKEN CORRUPTED place. She was going to rip his head off and deprogram him with her Action Replay because he was WRONG and needed to be CORRECTED just like she was because she used to be WRONG, she was a GLITCH and for eleven years she was WRONG FROZEN GLITCHED CORRUPTED and the Far Lands and Joe and everything was so WRONG here...

Skrillex tapped her shoulder and she realized that she had Joe in a choke hold, the creeper flashing red and terrified. Mumbling under her breath, she dragged him and the Codemobile—he _scratched_ the paint, that unbelievable bastard!—out of the hole, past the cheering mob and out of the Corner Far Lands.

Choko was seated upon a throne of diamond, feet resting on a pig as various pigs and zombie...pig men tended to her dim-witted needs. She waved with a distant smile, and Skrillex turned towards Joe. "Superpunch 10000.00," and he tapped Joe on his creepy expression.

Joe flew up into the air and above the Edge Far Lands, exploding far in the distance.

There was silence, before Choko sighed dreamily, "Pomegranates and lavender, a fresh way to start your day; how can the Queen suit your creeper-punching needs?"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Tele 1 70 1. They landed softly at the center of the map and lights off. Shadows returned to their natural places and system check running smoothly FOREIGN PRESENCE DETECTED overridden. Honey turned towards him and IP Address: World: AwesomeWorld555 Minecraft Beta 1.5_01. Blocky hands settled on his shoulders and 0001 100 0101 1101 0101 1101 1010 0011. Bob was talking with Choko about whether she could take her pigs home with her and FOREIGN PRESENCE DETECTED overridden run simulation of entity: Pig in environment: SugarRushSpeedwayArcade with regards to code adaption 037A?_0.

They were moving him into the Codemobile and /search Joe Spunk the creeper was dead and not set to respawn until the next day cycle. The seats were heaven against his aching simulation complete entity: Pig compatible with environment: SugarRushSpeedwayArcade with requirement of code tweaking with Action Replay.

Choko was driving faster as they approached the port leading out of Minecraft and FOREIGN PRESENCE DETECTED overridden and Bobby joked that CONNECTION TERMINATED—

* * *

Skrillex jolted as someone placed a sponge on his forehead. Groaning, he resisted the urge to throw up all over the people leaning over him. "Did we get the stupid cart back?"

"Hai, Sonny-kun!" Choko didn't look like a ketamine-head anymore, thank the Muses, and Skrillex relaxed back on to the bench. "In case you were wondering, we're in the power strip outside Terminal 1, where Minecraft is. Computer games are so interesting, with so many games per port instead of one per plug..."

Skrillex let his eyes drift to the left and blinked. Nope, he didn't dream any of that; various Sims and mine sweepers and roller coaster tycoons were milling through the power strip, and his train of thought wasn't interrupted by any computer code. Sighing with relief, he looked up at Honey, who was carding her fingers through his hair. It felt nice. "So how are we getting home again?"

"Bob's looking up a map of the building's electrical system; we don't want to get lost in the hyper-Narnia, now do we?" Honey massaged his aching head and Skrillex reveled in being free of simulations and overriding antiviruses and checking clock cycles. He just wasn't built for computers on that level, despite being born in one...and then he glared because now the free space in his head was bothering him. "What's wrong, Princess? Cat got your tongue?"

"Ooh, don't tell Sonic that." He laughed as she blushed and pulled out his headphones. "By the way Choko, I ran some simulation; as long as you plug in the pigs' codes into Sugar Rush through your Action Replay, they'll repsawn there. Wonderfully adaptive things, those Minecraft pigs..."

Choko squealed and ran around her motley group of pigs, promising to love them and cherish them and only attempt to take over the world on every other Thursday... "Crap! Honey, what time is it?"

"The arcade's closing in three hours, so we can either go back to work or take the day off. You kinda went into robot-mode back there..."

Run simulation of telling Honey that yes, he went into 80% full immersion and yes, it was fun in a horrible-in-hindsight sort of way. Simulation complete. Fok. "Well...you see..."

"I'm back!" Bob held a holo-map and showed them a rather complicated web of tunnels and cords and electrical currents. "Good thing this power strip is closest to the door, otherwise you'd might have gotten lost around this here curve."

"Fabulous. Can we get a coffee to go?" Skrillex wanted a cigarette (/delete nicotine craving) wanted a freaking drink because playing Toby Litwak with his code was giving him a complex. Circling his hands in the air, he imagined ones and zeroes at his fingertips, creating sound and color with the whim of mental code...

"Sonny, I know that you're prolly having an epiphany due to reconnecting to a computer for the first time in over two years. So if you could stop manipulating my avatar, that would be great."

Skrillex blinked; he had changed Honey into her blonde, pink furred version wearing a TRON Siren suit. "Sorry." A flick of his wrist and she was fine again.

"It's all cool, I know the feeling of power that comes from knowledge." She smirked and snapped her fingers, turning his glasses purple. "You should see me in Sonic the Fighters, me and Sonic know the code front and back like nothing else." A crash startled them, and they looked up to see Choko riding a pig out of a port, Bob running behind her with a tray of coffee balanced on his head. "Between us and Choko's magic driving skills, we'll probably reformat the way this arcade runs by next year."

Skrillex grinned, ran a routine to rejuvenate his code, and toasted his Codebusters with his latte. "Then to complete and utter chaos."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope wrung her hands as she paced in front of her cart, her three red pigtails brushing against her face. Choko never came back from whatever the Surge Protector wanted, and the girl was never late to anything; she'd show up to her own execution on time! Pulling at the white fabric of her racing suit, Vanellope debated bailing out to go track down her long-lost racing friend.

The Codebusters then proceeded to blast through on to the race track, way too cheerful for dropping off the grid for half the day. "Losers! Where in this gobstopper earth have you BEEN?!"

Choko laughed and jumped out, leading a large swarm of adorable pigs with her. "Oh Vanellope-heika, the story we have for you!"

* * *

"So if we establish a mailing system between the arcade room and the computer room, we can update each other on gamer trends and possible birthday parties." Vanellope folded her hands daintily on the giant table; she had opened a tea party for all the arcade game heads to meet in, and was doing her part to be a perfectly democratic sovereign.

"Excellent proposal, Queen Vanellope. Clyde, would you be willing to open your Bad-Anon to villains from the computer room?"

"Of course, anyone who is willing is welcome." Clyde did a cycle around his chair. "As the Codebusters were the ones to discover the computer room, they should have the opportunity to take part in the ambassador program..."

The various heads all grunted in agreement, Zangief very enthusiastic about an analogy with sparrow's eggs.

"I'll be sure to tell them once they meet up again for the next arcade crisis. Although, I do know that Skrillex has already taken a friend to the Minecraft game..."

* * *

"Kay Joel, I got us on to a multiplayer server..."

"Wow, this is actually really awesome. Hey, do you think we can get a pig into one of those carts?"

"Anything's possible here, trust me."

"..."

"Hey, your avatar has mouse ears. How neat."

"..."

"Those guys are looking at us funny. Must be jealous... /search deadmau5..."

"..."

"...ok, there's another deadmau5 here Do you think that's the guy you're based on. He's actually coming this way."

"...!"

"Ooooookay, open the chat window. Omg its deadmau5!"

"Get in the FREAKING cart, pig!"

"Where have I heard that before..."

"I know those feels, bro."

"Fn pig."

* * *

**私の車から出て行け！野郎！(Watashi no karuma kara deteike! Yarou!): Get out of my car! Bastard!**

**何ですか (Nandesuka) What?**

**Oh yes, Litwak's Arcade has a computer room with Minecraft on it, just like the long-lost arcade from my childhood.**

**And now the barrier between arcade and computer consoles for this story has been broken; we're going to both!**

**As for the "Edge/Corner Far Lands", go look it up and imagine three video games characters with traumatic experiences looking at that cluster of corrupted data. Heck, I even get creeped out looking at them due to my strange phobia of ruptured and damaged materials. Accoridng to the Minecraft wiki: "The hard limit where chunks are overwritten is at X/Z of +/-34,359,738,368, which is about 23% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. At X/Z of +/-2,147,483,648 (crashes at 2,147,483,439), item positions, mob pathfinding and other things using 32-bit integers will overflow and act strangely, usually resulting in _Minecraft _crashing. At X/Z of +/-1.798*108^308, the position of the player, represented by a double-precision floating point number, would overflow to 'infinity', causing a complete breakdown of arithmetic." In layman's terms, after a certain point CRAZY STUFF HAPPENS.**

**Skrillex goes into Data mode because he was created by Toby Litwak/Mr. Litwak's super amazing nephew (he finally has a name!) on a computer before being downloaded on to DJ Hero 2. As such, he makes a connected from deep within his code, and finds out that he likes going into god mode. Then again, who wouldn't.**

**The deadmau5 joke at the end is from a) the real deadmau5 often goes on Minecraft (and griefs people a lot), and b) he made a song, Get in the Cart, Pig/Fn Pig based off of the game after he couldn't get one of the adorable yet retarded pigs into a mine cart.**

**I love those pigs, they're all dumb and wall-eyed and pink and adorable :D**

**ANYWAY, I hope I didn't turn you off with this chapter. Action Replay is exploring more than just ordinary arcade games, because nothing in the Wreck It Ralph universe is merely "ordinary". So review and tell me how you feel.**


	11. Vs Super Mario Bros

**Greeting, my faithful readers!**

**Now that the Codebusters got their minds opened and expanded last chapter (say what you will about my story universe, but I love long-lasting continuity ramifications), I'm bringing them back down to the arcade earth with one of the most famous glitches of all time.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sugar Rush because I'm not Disney, I don't own Sonic the Fighters because I'm not SEGA, I don't own DJ Hero 2 because I'm not Activision, and I CERTAINLY don't own VS. Super Mario Bros, because I'm not Nintendo. A girl can dream, though...**

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey giggled as she and Sonic lazed about in her tiny house, talking about everything and nothing as he played with her hair. She was technically on call for the Codebusters, but after Skrillex assumed partial godhood and Choko became a pig farmer/code transplantation expert, Honey was allowing herself to just relax and plot world domination with her best friend. Speaking of which, "So...wanna play truth or dare?"

Before he could respond—judging from the healthy blush on his cheeks things were about to get interesting—Amy started pounding on her door. "Honey! Your code friends are here!"

Darn, she really wanted Sonic's opinion on M. Sonic's scandalous girlfriend. "Duty calls, blue boy wonder. I'll be back before the arcade opens."

After she changed into her uniform he walked her out to the port instead, and she was definitely spoiled by the company of good men. Skrillex could learn a thing about properly respecting her awesomeness. Waving bye to her best friend, she skipped over to her other best friends. "Back on the job so soon after contacting another world, huh?"

"I think it's good to keep up the work ethic; we don't want our skills getting soggy like overly milk-soaked cookies, now do we?" Choko's favorite pig was in the front seat so Honey stifled her laughter into the upholstery of the back row. "Besides, I don't think it's a good idea to keep Mario-san waiting."

Skrillex whistled lowly, fingers racing across his laptop. "Mario's a real legend, I wonder what went wrong in his game..."

"Probably a turtle koopa thing got lodged in the cloning matrix or something." Honey stretched, not really accidentally knocking his glasses askew. "Got your super powers under control, Dr. Manhattan?"

"If I feel the urge to reorganize someone's code, I'll be sure to start with you first."

"Glad to know, Sir Too-Hipster-For-Hipsters. Put on enough mascara today?"

"I do not wear mascara!"

"You're looking rather raccoon eyed today—is that glitter?"

Thus began a grand and record-setting slap fight down the cord, Choko swerving to knock them against the door handles. Her pig was making little pig noises and Honey lost it, collapsing in a fit of giggles and bringing the rest of her fellow code masters with her. "What is—hah!—what's the pig for, china doll?"

Choko parked the car and fixed them with a very grave stare. "Mr. Waddles is equipped with cherry liquorice laser cannons; if anyone so much as breathes funny on my cart, they will be eliminated."

By the time the cast of Vs. Super Mario Bros showed up, Honey and Skrillex were in fetal positions on the ground, trembling from the aftermath of a throughout laugh-lashing. "Mama mia!"

"Mr...Mr. Mario!" Skrillex pulled himself up, and Honey gave him credit for getting his breath under control. "It's an honor to meet you; what seems to be the problem?"

"It-sa my brother, Luigi! He's been a-trapped all day, and we canna a-find him."

Princess Toadstool—that was her name, right? Damn 80's games and their subsequent character updates—nodded, wringing her hands. "Bowser last saw him practicing underground, but that was before the arcade opened, and ever since then he's just been missing."

Choko nodded and jumped out of her car. "If you could take us to his last reported location, that would help, Toadstool-hime."

Mario jumped into the air. "Then let-sa go!" Honey trailed behind them, fighting down the urge to grin. Sure, he was Nintendo's golden boy and she was still getting used to the post-Console Wars political scene, but he was just so cool! She and Skrillex shared a grin as Choko began digging for answers on the dessert-adaptable qualities of mushrooms. Maybe today they wouldn't face certain death at the hands of cool and unusual glitches.

* * *

Honey peered into the pipe leading to the end of World 1-2, looking for any sign of Mario's wayward brother. "Are you sure he got lost in here?"

Bowser roared in the affirmative, and Honey translated for her friends. "He said that had he gone through the pipe as usual, the game would have registered his presence in the data logs. As it is now, approx. 5 minutes before the arcade opened he fell off the grid somewhere in this room."

"...and you got all that from one roar?" Skrillex coughed discreetly into his palm, but Honey and Bowser only laughed.

"Talking character problems, dearest. Did you find anything Choko?"

Choko was staring at the layer of bedrock below the bricks of the main floor. "Is there anything behind that pipe, Mario-san?"

"Just the warp-a pipes. He would-a appeared somewhere else if he-a taken them."

"Hmm..." Choko bit down on a pocky stick. "How do you get to the warp room?"

"Through the ceiling." Princess Toadstool pointed at the moving platforms descending from darkness. "It's the only way I know of to get in there."

"Uh huh..." Choko hopped across the platforms and faced them. "I don't buy it." Quickly running back, her raised foot hit the corner of the bricks and she pulled back. She landed on the brick layer below and began to glide through the ground towards the back of the pipe. "What happens if I jump into the first pipe before the rest of the warp zone ends?"

"I..." Mario watched as Skrillex and Honey did the same move, wringing his hat. "I have-a no idea where the game will a-put ya."

"Only one way to find out!" Honey helped the vertically challenged Choko and Skrillex jump into the pipe before the room finished loading. "And we are entering...World -1."

"Minus World?" Skrillex suddenly flickered, and his eyes grew wide. "Oh crap—can everyone swim?"

"Swim? Why do we need to—"

Choko's voice cut off as they materialized under water. No, Honey couldn't swim very well; she didn't really have the chance to learn in the sixteen years she spent trapped in a dark void. Swimming upwards, she banged against the water's surface but no dice. This was so dumb, why didn't they bring Mario, she was going to drown and Sonic was probably going to go Turbo and kill this game in her honor and...

And she didn't need to breath. Honey blinked as Skrillex and Honey floated under her in shock. Taking a risk, she inhaled the strangely sweet water and called out, "Since when does water not act like water?"

"Water's not water when it's made in 1986." Choko doggie paddled up and over a coral reef strip, leaking bubbles but otherwise perfectly fine. "Why bother with super drowning skills when the name of the game is to get through the level as quickly as possible?"

"In the defense of drowning, Labyrinth Zone would like to have a word with you." Skrillex was actually not-retarded in the water, as opposed to Honey's flailing and Choko's tiny arm movements. "But this is a good thing: now we don't have to change the code so we can last long enough to find Luigi."

"Where is the green sheep of the Nintendo family anyway?" Honey clung to Skrillex's hair, trying to orient herself. Spending her entire life talking to a hydrophobic person didn't help with the 'holy Chaos I am now a mermaid' factor of this lovely trip.

After punching a squid in the face when it tried to eat Choko, the three cautiously swam through the periwinkle water, Choko giving into the urge to hoard coins. The music was rather relaxing, and the stupid fishy enemies were easily punched into oblivion, and Honey admitted that as far as weird glitch levels went, this one was rather nice.

Luigi wasn't in this Minus World, and the pipe leading out approached. "Ok guys, he must be in there. Probably in yet another castle, but who am I to judge."

They exited, waiting to be loaded out of the water...and teleported back to the beginning of the level.

Skrillex groaned about infinite loops, Choko flipped upside down and complained about water in her ears, and Honey punched a squid in the face. Screw this Nintendo game, this SEGA girl wanted out!

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex floated by the pipe, trying to figure out how to get out. He sent in Honey solo to see what would happen, but nothing changed, and he was getting sick of the dreamy waltz grating against his dubstep-orientated ears. "I'm going to try to convince the game to let us out, ok? Just keep looking for Luigi."

"Dude, we've been through this level five times." Honey kicked dully at a coral plume. "I think the game ate him."

That was a possibility Skrillex didn't want to consider, because Joel read way too much Lovecraft between songs. "Choko, you saw the weird brick glitch that got us here. Any idea how he could've glitched out?"

Choko shrugged, but eyed the tiny space above the pipe. "Luigi-san is not the most...graceful of men, correct?"

"So it goes." Skrillex moved into the lotus position, relaxing into the rhythm of the game's coding.

"So if he were to freak out over being stuck in an infinite loop with a countdown timer—" Hah, the countdown timer was cute. Luckily Princess Toadstool got rid of that nonsense once they showed up. "—would it be a stretch to say he glitched himself into the wall?"

"Told you the game ate him."

Skrillex let Honey and Choko figure out how the wall managed to eat Luigi, and closed his eyes. Breathing and talking through the water was weird as fok for an air-breather, but this way he literally taste the code. Sinking deeper into the collective world of this glitched out level, he tapped into the game engine. 'Ok, let's see what's going on here. /search World -1 data about common game physics i.e. death regeneration power ups.'

...Interesting. They were in World 36-1 without the data for '36', which explained the lack of number in Minus World. What else was missing...ah, they were missing the data that warps the characters out of the underworld to the over world in World 1-2. Reaching out, he plucked a flag from the internal level editing data and placed it in Minus World. 'What else, what else... /search Player 2 avatar aka Luigi.'

Luigi was stuck in the wall. Reminding himself never to let Joel share his books with Honey, he tried resetting Luigi's data. His code burned under his mental hand and Skrillex frowned. 'Stuck, are we? Well, lucky you has two Codebusters ready to play save the princess.' He opened the code in his Action Replay and searched for the one Choko and Honey needed. 'I need me a phasing code, let them reach in and grab this bastard...that'll work.' Plucking it out, he applied it to Luigi's immediate block. Choko would be able to identify him easily now, and now all they needed to do was beat -1 and advance to -2. 'Alright then, that it for now. Oh, and /set coin amount rosebud !;!;!;!.'

Returning from the game matrix, he heard Honey yelling at Luigi and Choko squealing with delight. Never say he didn't take care of his friends.

* * *

"Ok team, we gotta go to Minus World.2 and get the heck out of here." Everyone grunted with agreement as his statement; Honey was busy trying to coax Luigi out of the mess he got in. "He's not phasing through?"

"Nope, the useless baby's too afraid to curl out of the weird locking glitch he's in." Huffing, Honey undid her pigtails. "I'm gonna tie him to me and try to glitch out; if we time it right we'll all get through the flag before the wall eats us."

"Good idea; carry on." Skrillex watched Choko collect all the coins, smiling to himself. "Get ready kid, we're moving on from this loop."

"Do we get to breathe air again? Not that I mind this too much, but I prefer to drink my tea, not inhale it."

The block Honey phased through began to shift and Skrillex tapped the flag pole. Triggering the end level program, they were warped into World -2, landing in yet another underwater level. Honey appeared to their left with her hand in the wall, her expression livid. "The wall ate my hair!"

It was true; her normally long hair was cut off into a short bob. Choko gasped then patted her shoulder, and Skrillex got the uneasy feeling that this wasn't just feminine distress. "Do you need anything, Honey-chan?"

"Just to get through this chaos." Honey jerked on her arm and shook her head. "I got a hold of Luigi but he's not giving."

Skrillex was tempted to break in and fix that mess, but then the pixels in Honey's hair shifted and he refrained; she was still glitchy despite fixing her code, and the last thing he needed was to break his friend in half in a hostile environment. "Let's just go."

There was little of interest in World -2. It looked like a castle dungeon level—which made sense; technically they were in World 3-4—set underwater, and was completely deserted. Choko blew up the bridge to 'kill' the Bowser data, and they advanced to the congratulatory screen. Honey glitched, Choko looked around for a princess, and Skrillex sighed with relief as they fell into Minus World.3; they could finally breathe air.

"Huh, this looks like the last le—AH FOK!"

Swarms of super fast goombas and koopa troopas and that stupid foking latiku on his stupid foking cloud showed up to try and murder them. Honey was defenseless as she was half stuck in a wall, so Skrillex and Choko formed a line of defense. "Save the princess, Choko!"

"Banzai!" Choko kicked a koopa in the face, scuttling the shell into a group of goombas. Skrillex held his laptop over Honey's head as spiny shells rained from the sky, and a goomba bit his butt. Shrieking, he punted it into oblivion and pulled on Honey's arm. "Charge the exit!"

With Choko acting as a very cute, sugar-powered lawn mower, the Codebusters made their way through the level. Fragments of enemies exploded everywhere as coins rained from the heavens, and Skrillex wondered what he did to deserve this. "Spiny shell at four o'clock!" Choko jumped off his shoulders to tackle the latiku, the smarmy bastard, and the resulting impact knocked a wave of goombas to their doom.

Honey glitched harder in his arms with every enemy appearing, and Skrillex needed to disconnect her and Luigi from the game's inner coding. "Choko, I'm, playing god again. Can you be a dear and fight off the Golden Horde?"

"You got it, Sonny-kun!" Really, he needed to bring her to DJ Hero 2; everyone would love her sweetness and willingness to commit gross enemy genocide. Exhaling, he dove back down into the code.

'Oh Luigi.' Luigi's code was spazzing all over the place, and he could heard the poor baby yelling for someone to save him from the evil ghosts. Ghosts? Honey's code splattered against an enemy cloning algorithm, and suddenly their opposition was a lot stronger. 'Nope, nope I'm not having that. /reset HoneytheCat and Player 2 avatar aka Luigi.'

Luigi was freed from the code but Honey sank in deeper, coming apart at the pixels. 'Oh, so you wanna play, Mr. Lovecraft Engine. Execute /killnpc all, /return HoneytheCat and Player 2 avatar aka Luigi to location World 36-3.'

Honey's code still was scattered across the game, but she and Luigi returned to Choko's side. Blinking out of Data-mode, he yelled, "Take Luigi to the end and beat the level! I need to fix Honey!"

While Choko whipped Luigi into shape, Skrillex analyzed Honey. The filler code holding her fragmented avatar together had been sheared out by the glitch, and now she was frozen, wall-eyed and smiling. Suppressing a shudder, he cracked his knuckles and blinked back in. 'Back to this. /locate ChokoPockystix.'

She was about to enter World -4, and Skrillex felt a swelling sense of foreboding. Checking the corrupted level data for Minus World.4, he wanted to scream. 'She's going to crash the game! Honey's code will be wiped out in the reset!' Thinking quickly, he picked up his Action Replay. 'Ok, I have 3 seconds. But 3 seconds isn't three seconds when code moves at the speed of light.'

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Choko blinked as Luigi-san drop kicked a latiku with his head. She was expecting an eccentric weakling with more screams than substance. And while he did shriek like Skrillex-kun at his worst, and drop kicked with his _head_, he was remarkably less lame than she pegged him for.

Waiting to be loaded into World -4, she hoped that Honey was ok. She was there when Honey was still a broken statue; she helped bring her to life! But she had faith in Skrillex-kun, and was sure that the next level would bring better fortune.

They waited in darkness for the level to load, and...nothing. There was a blank void and Choko had trouble breathing because dip her dots, the game had crashed! Screaming along with Luigi-san, they ran around like headless candy corn chickens waiting for the slaughter. "Sonny-kun! Get us out of here!"

She shouldn't have expected him to respond, he was probably saving Honey-chan's life. Not to mention that he probably wasn't omniscient. Hyperventilating, Choko bit down on her Action Replay. "Luigi-san! How do we get back to the main menu?"

"I don't a-know!" He tugged on his mustache. "We need to die to get-a back during normal game-a-play, but we have crashed the game-a! Mama mia, big bro is gonna kill me!"

Choko grabbed his mustache. "If he's going to kill you, we need to get out of here first!"

"...oh, I guess we can-a stay here..."

"Do not despair, Luigi-san!" She unhooked her cartridge, the soft blue glow illuminating the fire in her chocolate brown eyes. "There's always a way out, no matter the reason or location." Looking over the codes, Choko sat down on the bottom of the void. "Let's see...do you know anything about your game's debug mode?"

"No."

"Forcing the watchdog?"

"No."

"Doing anything that will trigger a game over?"

"A-no." He slouched with a sigh. "I bet big bro would-a know how to do all that-a stuff."

Choko stood up. "Don't say that! I am but one of sixteen racers, but we are all as important as even Vanellope-hime. You're more than just a Player 2 palette switch, you know." She smiled as his expression. "Come on, I've never met anyone else who could head-butt an enemy to death. You're fast, you jump very far, and you have a lovely mustache. You're as important as Mario, you just need to know that for yourself."

Something changed in the code of Luigi, and he jumped in the air. "I may not be as strong as Mario, or as popular or-a well respected or anything like that...but I am-a good at being bad. And that's what game-a overs are all about!"

"You got this!" Somehow Luigi managed to slip on nothing and break his neck, triggering a death in an empty stage. The darkness faltered and glitched before they fell into the space by the main hub. Luigi gasped then ran around cheering, Choko showering him with coins. Usually she showered gold-foil chocolate coins on friends who needed a boost, but there were as shiny as any.

* * *

"...and that's all I know."

Princess Toadstool-hime floated next to her in the code well, trying to locate Skrillex-kun's influence in the code matrix. Mario-san and Bowser-san were upstairs congratulating Luigi-san for ending his horribly lame streak, and Choko hoped that her friends were also safe. "Do you see anything unusual, Toadstool-hime?"

"There is a lot of code floating freely against the others..." Princess Toadstool-hime held up a delicate strand. "I believe this is code for hair."

"Honey-chan!" Choko collected the code and searched for more fibers. There! She floated towards a trail of scattered code, absorbing it back into her Action Replay. The trail ended by the level data fr World 1-2, where this whole mess began. "We must hurry, Toadstool-hime! If Honey wakes up without her hair..."

Both of them shuddered; the sudden loss of long hair was worse than death for some avatars. Racing through the halls as fast as the princess's heels could carry her, they jumped back down through the pipe to see a strange sight.

Three Honey-chans were laid around Skrillex; one normal, one blonde haired and pink, and the other black and white. Holes in each of them were being nicely filled in by Skrillex-kun, who seemed very smug considering that he didn't have any clothes on. "Oh hi Choko, Princess. Just fixing my friend, no big deal."

Choko nodded dumbly as she held up her cartridge. "I have data for her hair."

"Thanks, I was wondering where it went." Skrillex-kun frowned. "I think we should wait to put that back in; now she's mixed up with my clothes and my right eye, and I'd like to sort that mess out before putting too much back in."

"Perfectly understandable." Now Choko needed to giggle because one of his eyes was facing towards the wall, just like Mr. Waddles and Miss Pinky and all her pigs back home. Princess Toadstool-hime must've had the same idea, because then both of them were trying not to self destruct.

"Huh, what's so—oh come on ladies, it's not that bad! Haven't you ever seen a naked wall-eyed DJ before? They're all over the place, just ask Joel!"

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Too many people were crowded in the waiting room outside the Royal Infirmary/Bakery, but Vanellope didn't have the heart to throw them out. If Ralph got half his code gutted through a foreign code web, she'd want to crowd up in people's faces too.

The tinier Sonic was in the process of eating his hand, the bigger Sonic and Chun-Li—and wasn't that was a dangerous mix of speed and power and odd couple heights. Hammer-man was a bad influence on people—making sure he didn't bite off too much. Amy was arguing with Tails over the last cookie on the display, a bunch of shady looking villains were canoodling in a corner, and Knuckles was being lectured by Ralph because breaking every sugar-stained glass window in a senseless rage was both dangerous and very disrespectful.

Glad that somebody was beating manners into that thick skulled nimrod, Vanellope tapped on the operating door. "Can I get somebody for a press release? I'm pretty sure the sight of C. Sonic crying will cause everyone in the arcade to spiral into a soul-destroying depression."

Dr. Mario stepped out, as grave as a grape gumball. Everyone froze, not daring to breathe. "I...I'm-a not sure how to say this..."

"WHERE THE FLYING MOTHER—" such language!"—CHAOS IS MY HAIR?! I THOUGHT YOU FIXED THAT LAST YEAR!"

Baby Sonic burst into giggles as Honey stalked into view, perfectly patched up and radiant from a dip in a rejuvenating honey pool. Skrillex and Choko followed her, rolling their eyes as Honey raved about this was a disgrace, her model clearly called for pigtails and here she was with a mop. And waiting the rest of the week for her code to settle was apparently a crop of baloney, because she wasn't a fragile rice paper doll who needed to be babied. Vanellope approved of the sentiment—it took forever for Ralph to stop freaking out over her tele-glitch before her game got reset—and handed Dr. Mario a thick wad of credits for the bakery. The cotton candy heavens knew that he needed it.

Honey was ranting and raving to C. Sonic, who simply shrugged and twitched his nose. Immediately she calmed down, fluffing her black liquorice colored locks. "Oh, you think it's pretty?"

He nodded and she glomped him, and had she been a Sugar Rush native Vanellope would've bet sugar sparkles would've fallen around them. Snorting, she climbed on Ralph's shoulder. "Hey Stinkbrain, can you do me a huge favor?"

"What do you want, Queen Boogerfarmer?"

Honey was pulling C. Sonic and the rest of her crowd out of the room, babbling about how he sould've said something about her hair three minutes ago. "If I ever act like the heroine of a bad dating sim, kindly punch me into Diet Cola Mountain."

* * *

"Dude, what happened to your eye? It's following me all weird-like."

"And why are you wearing clothes made out of...is this candy?"

"Unless someone hands me a Red Bull in the next five seconds, nobody's hearing nothing."

* * *

**Minus World! Easily one of the most famous pure glitch levels out there, Minus World occurs when you enter either the far left or right pipe in the Vs/Super Mario Bros warp zone before the entire screen loads. Normally it's an endless loop, but level editors reveal more freaky glitch locations; on the American versions World -4 is always a dead end, but on the Famicon you can actually "beat" the game.**

**Vs. Super Mario Bros. Is an arcade version of the NES game. Normally, a Mario in an arcade is from the much more mainstream Mario Bros., but I wanted more from this chapter, and let's face it: if Litwak got Sega Sonic Arcade in America when it was only released in Japan, then he probably got this game too.**

**Idk if Princess Toadstool is named Peach in the first game, so I left that part out. In my mind, the Princess with strawberry-blonde hair is Toadstool, while the blonde is Peach.**

**Honey is still pretty broken, but they fixed her again. Skrillex's code commands are a mix of single player commands from Minecraft (makes sense, that where he learned them) and cheat codes (rosebud !;!;!;!;! for The Sims brings me way back). I looked up actual computer commands but they're exclusive to each platform and I figured the current codes work fine enough.**

**Sonic and one of the Chun-Lis are indeed dating. Felix started a revolution for short guys everywhere.**

**Just a heads up: the next chapter doesn't involve death and destruction, although it is canon. So you can skip it if you want, but I'd like to think you wouldn't.**


	12. Hero's Duty

**Well, let's see what I've written so far. Honey has been maimed two times as karmic punishment for kicking major butt across the arcade, Choko has transformed from an overly polite secretary to a hard-racing code extraordinaire, and Skrillex is trying to fit his new-found powers next to his music skills. Action, adventure, Schadenfreude, and a bit of drama...but where is the true lovey-dovey romance beyond background pairings and Choko discovering the pangs of first love?**

**So with that, here's a rather action-lacking chapter that finally made its way from Wreck-t Ralph. Skip if you want if gooey wedding glory isn't your style, but who can resist Choko in a sugar-sparkle dress?**

**Disclaimer: Choko Pockystix technically came from Sugar Rush which is owned by Disney, Honey the Cat came from Sonic the Fighters which is owned by SEGA, Skrillex sorta came from DJ Hero 2 which is owned by Activision, and a buttload of people came from Hero's Duty (and Fix-It Felix, Jr. for that matter) which is also owned by Disney.**

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

The crowd screamed as Skrillex mixed to his heart's content, music spinning over their heads like flames from a chariot. While his fellow Djs egged him on, he began melting more and more songs together in a deliciously dirty electro-dubstep-trance-rap rock remix, enough chords to build a skyscraper rattling the reinforced walls. Here he was in his zone, a master of ultra-layered synth screams and bass deeper than the Marianas Trench. Building up to the grand finale, his fingers sparked with static as he yelled over the noise "D-D-DROP THE BASS!"

The resulting shock wave of pure sound blew the roof off the club's walls, tsunamis of color and music flowing through the audience. The song ended with a vicious downshift and a moment of silence filled the empty slots where his remix had been. One person coughed, then the entire room was filled with cheers, people ecstatic at destroying the building with the power of electro-dubstep-trance-rap rock. "SKRILLEX! SKRILLEX!"

Bowing to the adoring masses, he stumbled off the DJ table and was held aloft by his fellow music masters. Suri was screaming for an encore, deadmau5 demanded he give him samples from his set, and in the back corner he could see his code busting pals flopping on the ground proclaiming that they were not worthy.

Skrillex bade farewell to his friends, promising to reset the club's code on his way out, and skipped over to Choko and Honey. "Had I known you guys were here, I would've given you front-stage seats!"

"Dude, people in the computer room could hear that!" Honey was bouncing in her steps as they traveled across the neon back-level to the port. "That was epic, you need to figure out how to do that in other games!"

He blushed at the praise, ducking his head. "Well, I've been working on augmenting my music skills with my super-epic Toby Litwak skills, so I'll get back to you at the end of the week."

Choko jumped on his back, hooking tiny legs on his shoulders. "You simply have to play...whatever that was for Sugar Rush one day. Just imagine the racing that would inspire..."

While she daydreamed on his head—for a girl who only ate candy, she was rather lightweight—he played Shove the Sissy with Honey. Her hair was still in its bob, but Skrillex was sure Dr. Mario had untangled that bit of code. "Rocking the flapper look I see."

"Thanks, I'm experimenting with player reactions to different hair styles." Preening under his attention, she smirked, "And it turns out that the shorter the hair, the more aerodynamic the fighter. Maybe you should get a haircut, Mr. Background Event."

He clutched his head. "Come near me with scissors and I will have to end you."

"He's right Honey-chan, he'd look funny with short hair." Choko ducked as they took the train to the Codemobile waiting outside the port, pondering the great mysteries of attraction. "Cut it short and he'll go from bishounen to dangerously androgynous."

"Yeah, I—hey, I am not a girly boy!" Brat.

Honey snorted and Choko giggled into her palm, and he decided to sit on both in retaliation for their sass. Their muffled protests was very soothing on his back, and he let his admittedly large butt squish Honey into the seat. Sure, he'd probably end up with shaved eyebrows and pink hair for his insolence, but it's not like they didn't have it coming.

After Honey kicked his arse to the Codemobile, Skrillex patted Mr. Waddles the Security Pig, receiving an oink in return. Such a well-mannered pig, he didn't try to eat his clothing like the rest of Choko's half-Minecraft half-Sugar Rush horde. Idly wondering what Sugar Rush-raised pork chops would taste like, he raised an eyebrow as they pulled into their destination. "Hero's Duty?"

"A special request, no evil cybugs glitching out and ready to send me back to the infirmary." Honey looked rather embarrassed at having her code be torn open through another game's code matrix, and Skrillex thumped her on the back. "But if one tries to murder us, just blast the game's BGM at him. You technically made the soundtrack, you know."

Skrillex grinned—he was super stoked to actually listen to what his character model designed—before waving at the group of soldiers standing at attention at the unloading area. "Good after-hours. How can we help you?"

They parted to allow Sergeant Calhoun to step forward, and man was she an impressive blonde. Not that he'd ever hit on her; he knew his league and she was in the punch-flirtatious-bums-in-the-face league. She nodded at them, still stern and super soldiery after half a year in the arcade. "Codebusters, glad you could make it in such a short notice. I have a proposition for you."

"Anything for the lady who helped save Sugar Rush." Choko smiled cheerfully at Calhoun, softening some of the battle-hardened gloss. "Is there something wrong with character avatars? Enemy respawning?"

Calhoun shook her head, and—by the name of auto tune, she was blushing! "No, nothing of that nature. It's just...well, could you be able to regenerate a location that only exists in back story?"

Honey nodded, adjusting her belt. "Choko did the same for my level when she reformatted my programming, so three of us together should be able to make a stable recreation. What do you have in mind?"

Calhoun shifted her weight, smiling nervously. "A wedding chapel."

Choko gasped, Honey snorted that she owed M. Sonic five rings, and Skrillex grinned. "We do wedding programming, building, decorations and music on my part."

* * *

Skrillex whistled at the intimidating vault hiding the code well. Calhoun entered a very complicated cheat code that probably triggered the cutscene she had in mind, and the giant web of Hero's Duty's lifeblood gleamed in the darkness. Diving in once Choko and Honey rechecked their safety harnesses, they carefully entered the matrix. "This is more complicated than I thought. Try looking for Calhoun's data and we'll go from there."

Skrillex resisted the urge to snoop on the data presented, knowing that dropping intel around this game's crowd would end up with him in the brig. They probably had...he didn't know, psycho cy-bug laser lava sharks waiting to tear code traitors apart at the pixels.

What seemed like an eternity of flashing code later, Honey waved them over. "I think I found something!"

They swam over to her end and oh jeez, this was totally private stuff from Calhoun's back story. Code for a guy called Brad, info about her tragic loss of her parents, friends, fiance...oh boy. "Who is she marrying again?"

"Fix-It Felix, why?"

"Good, she's not asking us to bring to life a guy that doesn't really exist." Skrillex paused. "I know Felix, he's an old-fashioned sweetheart, paid really well for the anniversary party. And like half her size."

"Guess whose good example helped convince Chun-Li to go out with M. Sonic." Honey laughed at their expressions; Choko look positively scandalized and Skrillex could only give M. Sonic major props for daring to look Chun-Li in the eye and say without irony that he was a legs kind of guy. "I'm glad for them, he's adorable and she could use some heart-on-sleeve TLC."

"And who are we to deny them such a romance!" Choko held up the code for the chapel, her Action Replay glittering gold as she funneled boundary and location into its existence. "Ooh, do you think we'll get invited to the wedding?"

"If everything goes right and Felix does good by giving her the wedding she deserves, Sonny over here might end up playing for them."

The code box blinked as they made the chapel real, plunking it right by the barracks and altering the weather models so that a permanent sunset would glow through its windows. Skrillex knew about love darn it, he caught Jin taking Xiaoyu to Burger Time just yesterday, and if Calhoun wanted a big fat wedding chapel with all the glitz and glamor, she was getting that wedding chapel. "Start compiling data slots for flowers, ribbons, whatever she wants to deck the place out in. There's some loaded in here already, but something tells me Felix wants ALL the shinies for his lady."

"Ooh, we gotta bring back the minister! But where will he go after this?"

"We can make him an event-only character. Rent him out to other weddings and baptisms and whatever in the arcade rooms, stuff like that." Skrillex began entering slots for his sound system; they were getting all the surround sound the building could take. "Better reinforce the walls; I doubt they'll appreciate me blowing the roof off."

* * *

**Countdown to the Wedding POV**

* * *

People raced across the giant chapel like honey bees on a mission, determined to make this wedding count. Calhoun-san and Felix-san were gazing out the large window, taking about guest lists and decorations, and Choko sighed happily. Pollipop-chan would've been grossed out by all the pomp and circumstance, but Choko loved true love, and here it was, dressed in space armor and a felt cap in front of her.

Shaking herself, she spun on her heel and glared at the meal crew her hand-picked for the reception. Peter Pepper-san, Tapper-san, Mary-san, and her own Beard Papa-ojiisan and Pollipop-chan were assembled in the crowd, standing very straight in her presence. "Ok 皆さん (mina san), we have until Sunday to set up this wedding and we need to go over some ground rules. First off, know the allergies of everyone in this arcade. Some will be walk ins so you won't have time to ask before someone dies from eating peanut butter."

They gulped—such an incident would forever destroy their reputation—and their eyes never left Choko as she paced in front of them. "Next, be considerate of the bride's wants. She is finally getting over the base depression in her programming through this wedding, so you cannot screw this up. If she wants jelly bean root beer floats for the main course, she gets her jelly bean root beer floats, and they better be the best jelly bean root beer floats in existence."

"As we know, this is going to be a white wedding, but that doesn't give you the excuse to skimp out on the decorations. I expect the appetizers to be works of art. I expect the dinner and dessert to be legendary. And the wedding cakes better be the crown jewels in the history of wedding cakes, or so help me I will take everyone out back and run them over in my cart! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes!" Their expressions of terror morphed into proud determination and ambition, and Choko prided herself on her team.

"Go and research everything there is to know about pies and soldier fare, and don't come back until your creations are fit for an empire!"

* * *

Honey rolled her eyes as the soldiers argued over who got to sit where. As a mediator for fighting of this nature, she hit everyone on the backs of their meaty heads. "Like I said five times already, the pews are angled so that everyone gets to see Ms. Calhoun and her vertically challenged husband finally tie the knot. But Ms. Calhoun specifically asked for her best unit to be in armor in the front row, so unless she cleared you, you get to sit behind them."

Deciding not to get into the inner drama of the Hero's Duty cast, Honey did her round in the rest of the chapel. Men were double checking all the ribbons, the flowers set to come in the morning before the big event so that they didn't wilt. Not that she would let them wilt of course, but she appreciated the thought anyway. Catching a man as he fell from the ceiling, she walked up to a tense conversation between Felix and Ralph. "Problem, boys?"

"Just that Felix is a sentimental idiot about to ruin his wedding."

Harsh. She looked at Felix, who seemed ready to stamp his foot, and decided to spare everyone the embarrassment. "Ok, what exactly is going on here?"

"I want to make him my best man—"

"Bad idea Felix, bad idea"

"—but he's questioning my reasoning. How could I not choose you, you're the reason why Tammy and I got together in the first place!"

String this bit of juicy info for later, Honey allowed Ralph to retort that "what happens when I wreck the place just like back at the anniversary party? I'll probably be the reason why the wedding fails!"

"Don't say that Ralph, everything will be fine—"

"No it won't! I'm a wrecker, I wreck nice things, and I don't want to ruin this for you!"

"And this is where I step in." Smiling at the two huffing and puffing heroes, she continued sweetly, "Ralph, it warms my heart to see your concern over your best pal. But don't worry; the Codebusters have fixed this place up from the first wedding disaster. You and Knuckles and all the heavy hitters can try and bring down this adamant-reinforced marble, but I doubt you'll be able to leave so much as a scratch."

Ralph blushed and fiddled with the cookie medal strung around his shoulders, and she turned to a grateful Felix. "Don't be hard on the big lug, he's caring in his own thick-headed way about your wedding day. Take him out to Tappers and hammer out this best man business; I got the rest of this."

"You sure?" Now the soldiers were shooting at each other.

Honey cracked her knuckles, her Action Replay thrumming under her day clothes. "Trust me hon, they'll be sweet as kittens before the day is over."

* * *

Music from Hero's Duty echoed through the chapel, vibrating as Skrillex honed the right amount of treble and bass to fill the vaulted room. "Acoustics are great, now for the soundtrack." Scrolling down his laptop, he asked Calhoun, "So what do you want to walk down the aisle to? I can mix the traditional 'Here Comes the Bride' electric guitar sample we have here with your personal leitmotif, or we can access music from the internet from the computer room."

"Try the first one." Calhoun hovered over his shoulder and Skrillex made a quick mix of the two. The surround sound carried the music through the air and Calhoun melted ever so slightly. "I...I think that's a good one."

"Perfect, it compliments your selected music for the beginning part. Any word from Felix about what he wants for the reception?"

"Nothing specific, just something he can 'bip bop' to." Calhoun raised an eyebrow as Skrillex cough to cover up his laughter. "Have something funny to share, Mozart? That's my husband you're snorting about."

"Nothing's funny ma'am." He scrolled down a bit more, then looked up art the sergeant. "But just a question. Of all men to fall for, why a 16-bit handyman from the 80s?"

She paused, then gave him a genuine smile. "Exactly what you just said. He doesn't see me as some run of the mill battle bimbo to have a wild night with, but as an actual person." She leaned against a marble pillar, gazing off into the sunset. "Sure, he's a cheese ball marinated in fluffy bunnies, and sometimes I get frustrated over the differences in our programming, but he loves me despite my..." She gestured at herself. "I'm not a extroverted friend-maker like he is, but around him I feel like I could be. He didn't make a big spectacle of our relationship, he's respectful of my back story and only pushes when I need to be pushed, and he's just so genuine, so friendly and polite and so damn cheerful like...like—"

"Like your exact opposite that was built just for you?" Skrillex smiled at her shocked expression, resisting the urge to play every single one of the cheesy romance songs collected on his Mac. "I love a good love song, ma'am, and you two play just like one." Standing up, she shook her hand. "Whatever music you want, you got, just as long as you never stop."

* * *

Vanellope jumped up and down on her giant sponge cake bed. "I'm gonna be a maid of honor! I don't know what that is, but who cares!" She front flipped in front of her closet, ripping it open and throwing dresses on the bed. "Help me pick out a good dress guys, we need spectacle, sparkles and whatever else you think fits!"

All the assembled female racers dug through the clothes, discarding everything that wasn't twice the size of Vanellope's head. Minty held up a giant chocolate-brown dress, barely visible under the madness. "How about this one?"

"Hmm..." Vanellope ran her fingers over the material. "Too drab for the event, but I like your style. Find me the giant pink dress that I never wear!"

Taffyta swam through the mess on the bed, searching for pink. "The one with the cape and gloves?"

"Exactamundo." Vanellope quickly brushed out her hair, letting Marzipanne and Lemonetta fret over the perfect tiara and matching candy barrettes. "You think it's fancy enough?"

Taffyta and Snowanna dragged out the dress, and everyone could see the faint aura of princess power radiating from its layers. Crumbelina clapped her hands. "Oh, it's perfect!"

"You think it needs jewelery?" Bubblebetty was matching the selected barrettes with the calla lilies from Vanellope's bouquet. "If we're going all out, it needs some bling."

Pollipop dragged open one of Vanellope's closet drawers, finding a wealth of chokers, ribbons and rings. "This sweetheart one matches perfectly."

Sour Apple measured Vanellope's arm span and nodded. "Yep, the outfit made it through the slight model changes. I'll take it to the drizzle cleaners so they can sugar it up."

Vanellope, hair done up in a proper bun, nodded. "Thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it." She bit her thumb, frowning at the bouquet. "Does anyone know what a maid of honor does?"

Everyone shifted around, searching their child brains for any specifics on weddings. Jubileena snapped her fingers. "I have a movie about weddings back home, we can watch it to find out!"

"I officially call for a Girls-Only Wedding Sleepover Spectacular!" Everyone cheered and Vanellope waved her arms." Choko, Adorabeezle, break out the candy and s'mores makers! And everyone bring their own fancy dresses; we're gonna get this right the first time, no matter how many tubs of ice cream we go through!"

* * *

Mary quickly loaded the pies into the oven, swiping off sweat as Tapper refilled her water jug. Everyone was in overtime as the wedding loomed over their heads; they had five hours until the arcade opened, and after that they needed to load the chapel for the wedding. Gritting her teeth, she counted forty pies waiting to be filled as one of the assistants kicked up the AC.

Helpers from Burger Time ferried ingredients and utensils between the overclocked bakers and cooks and pyrotechnicians. Flame erupted over their heads as Peter Pepper battled the largest grill Mary had seen in her life, and she hoped that her pies would survive the night.

Burt it wasn't all bad. She felt a camaraderie between herself and her fellow food masters, her code firing off as quickly as theirs as they pushed their programming to the max. Sugar Rush donated their giant bakery fields for their needs, Mario got them the finest imported mushrooms, and everyone was so excited for the wedding. Mary loved weddings, loved the romance and the tradition, and the fact that Felix was getting married took the cake.

The bride's wedding cake itself was a giant fifty tier tower with multiple smaller tiers branching off, filling up a large table by itself. Every light-flavor in the book was in that cake, catering to the various allergies and preferences the guests had, and the sheer magnitude of the cake broke three baking records. Mary switched places with Beard Papa; her cake skills were needed for the groom's cake still in production.

Twirling her piping bags and eyeing the growing masterpiece of darker flavors, Mary dove into the chaos with all the strength her limited movements had. Felix was her hero, and he deserved only the best she could give him.

* * *

M. Sonic adjusted Tails' tie, Knuckles and Shadow milling around and griping about their formal wear. "For the last time guys, they're not monkey suits. Have some decorum, we're not showing up to a wedding in casual attire."

"Easy for you to say, you're always going to those spokesperson things." Knuckles tugged on his collar and screwed up his own tie. Tails giggled as M. Sonic nearly choked him with the material, the echidna squeaking out, "And you—gack!—always dress to impress when there's a lady involved."

"That's because he's got manners." Amy walked into the room, all dolled up in a rose dress, and snorted at their expressions. "Come on boys, Eggman's waiting outside with the rest." Grabbing on to Tails hand, she called back as they made their way out, "And the kids from Sonic the Fighters are out here too. C. Sonic's about to pass out."

Groaning, M. Sonic dragged Shadow and Knuckles out to see C. Sonic blushing very deeply in his own little tuxedo. Taking a moment to acknowledge his lil bro's cuteness, he chased away the people pinching his cheeks and making the poor kid second guess showing up. "All ready for the big event? Where's Honey?"

C. Sonic replied that Honey was with the Codebusters making sure that nothing went wrong in the early stages. Figuring that he'd get to pick on C. Sonic at the actual wedding, he led the motley group of finely dressed humans and anthropomorphic animals out into GCS. Everyone was on their way even though the wedding wouldn't start for another hour, and both Sonics tapped their foot impatiently as they waited in line.

"What are you guys doing?" Honey came out of the port and wow, she really cleaned up in a silky red number that had C. Sonic self-destructing. "You guys are on the express list since M. Sonic kept Mr. Best Man from going nuts last year; follow me."

Thumping C. Sonic's back, M. Sonic and both Tails laughed at the little blue hedgehog tripped over himself to walk with Honey. "Do crushes really turn you into a loser?"

"Don't ask me, I've got this." And Chun-Li was absolutely stunning in her dark green qipao, waltzing up to him as if she owned the arcade. Grinning at his awestruck lil bros, he wrapped his arm around her powerful waist and headed into the wedding scene. She rubbed the back of his ears and ok, he was a big fat slow-mo loser and Shadow could laugh at him all he wanted, but if Felix could get lucky with his own babe, then so could the fastest thing alive.

* * *

Everything was set. All the guests were neatly filed into pews on both sides, Skrillex was building up the music to the final stretch, and not a single cy-bug could be seen out of the giant windows. Everyone was in their best attire—Ralph's bare feet and Felix's admittedly formal occasion cap could be forgiven due to their natures—and the only thing missing was the bride herself.

Suddenly the music swelled into a triumphant remix of Calhoun's leitmotif, and everyone turned to see her gliding down the aisle, the Sugar Rush girls throwing sugared petals into the stilled air. Taking her place at a beaming Felix's side, Tamara Jean Calhoun was a goddess in glittering white, and her smile was as radiant as the jewels in her hair.

They turned towards each other as the music melted into delicate strings and bells, complemented by the laser trackers of the guns the soldiers on the bride's side pulled out and aimed towards the windows. The minister spoke the simple passages as some of the burlier bosses, namely Zangief, wiped away their tears, and both Chun-Lis nestled into the sides of their dates. Q-Bert and his gang kept their curses to themselves, the food crew took a moment to relax before the nerve-wracking reception, the Djs appreciated their friend's work, the ambassadors from the computer room marveled at the HD graphics, and Honey held on to C. Sonic's hand as Amy and Tails pretended not to notice.

Once the minister spoke, "You may now kiss the bride", Felix tossed his hat back and dipped Calhoun low, everyone cheering as an arcade marriage came into being. Ralph wiped away a tear, the Sugar Rush racers sighed dreamily, and the Codebusters gave each other a thumbs up. Best wedding ever.

* * *

By the time Mr. Fix-It tipsily carried a giggling Mrs. Fix-It to their awaiting carriage, courtesy of the racing games, everyone was in agreement that the reception was also the best one in history. Ralph and the rest of Bad-Anon sang bawdy songs from the bar, the cake was demolished in minutes as the food crew high-fived each other, all the dates and some new ones had torn up the dance floor, and M. Sonic and Ryu had disappeared for a good half hour, returning with secret grins and a new friendship.

After the newlyweds made off for Extreme Easy Living 2, Honey met up with Choko and Skrillex, grinning ear to ear. "And how are you guys doing?"

"Spectacular." Choko somehow had kept her beautiful pink sugar-silk kimono from being stained by her chocoholic tendencies, wiping her mouth primly with a napkin.

Skrillex, on the other hand, was laid out on the DJ booth, chugging a Red Bull. "I can't believe I played YMCA without irony. And I can't believe that everyone danced with even less irony."

Laughing, Honey ruffled their heads. "I'm heading out; the Sonic casts are gonna party it up on the racing tracks, cars vs. runners. You guys have rides back home?"

"Joel gave David a swirly so Layla's digging him out; once they get him unplugged I'll go home."

"King Candy's taking all the racers back together." Yawning, Choko stood up. "I need to congratulate my team before we go; they've gotten 5 new requests for their skills. お休みなさい (Oyasuminasai)!"

Skrillex dragged himself off the table and loaded up his things with a snap of his fingers, and the three parted. Tomorrow was another big gaming day, and who knew what kind of chaos the Codebusters would get into next, but one thing was clear: if the code business didn't pan out, they were fine with being wedding planners

* * *

**ojiisan: honorific for grandfathers and seniors you are familiar with**

**皆さん ****(mina san): Everyone**

**お休みなさい ****(Oyasuminasai): Good night**

**Why yes, I love weddings. How could you tell?**

**Extreme Easy Living 2 is the scrapped game from Wreck-It Ralph that was a mix of The Sims and Grand Theft Auto. The storyboard make it look really touristy and beachy, and where else would two newlyweds go on a honeymoon except for a beach getaway?**

**Next chapter we return to the standard 'bad things happen to the Codebusters' action. But I hope you liked this chapter; I am a HUGE fan of Hero's Cuties, and Calhoun really does deserve an awesome wedding after her last one resulted in Brad getting eaten :D**


	13. Star Wars Arcade

**And here's another chapter! I'm SO SORRY about not updating quickly, but the second I started writing, my creative juices took a nose dive off a skyscraper into a pile of broken dreams. And THEN I had to go and get re-obsessed with Fullmetal Alchemist, and I'm currently watching and reading it while I'm writing this very sad and manic author's note. BUT ON WITH THE STORY.**

**Because of the events of the Big Damn Wedding, a pairing that was SO FREAKING OBVIOUS bumped it's premier up three chapters early. As such, I had to move games around to even out the too obviousness and the mandatory plot elements, and it's such a huge headache that I'm swearing off entire arcade-altering chapters until at least chapter 15.**

**Oh, and I have a question: would you rather have a game filled with so many characters, most of the game play revolved around defeating them so they could be used in-game, or a game with a smaller roster with the story mode going deep into their characters? (Spoiler alert: this is a big freaking question for events later in this universe. Answer honestly.)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sugar Rush (Disney), Sonic the Fighters (SEGA), DJ Hero 2 (Activision) or Star Wars Arcade (Atari).**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

The call to action came when Choko was in the bakery, refreshing the frosting on the Codemobile. Looking up to see Vanellope-heika leading Skrillex-kun into the designing table, she finished up the mini-game and switched her hair color back from banana yellow to sweet bean pink. "We're bakery fresh and ready to roll out. What game needs help tonight, Vanellope-heika?"

"According to a mutant turtle guy—I think his name was Leonardo?—the Star Wars cabinet started glitching towards the end of the day." The violet-eyed queen shrugged, "They haven't said anything, but it wouldn't hurt to check on them. You never know when a game's set to crash."

Nodding in grim agreement, Choko jumped into the driver's seat as Skrillex-kun and Vanellope-heika piled in the back, Mr. Waddles absently chewing on the upholstery. "Silly piggy, you know that too many marshmallows are bad for a developing security pig."

Ignoring her friends' laughter—they simply didn't appreciate the immense responsibility that came with being a top-tier pig farmer—she raced across the candy-based hills, relishing the sweet wind flowing through the open cart. Dropping Vanellope-heika off at the castle so she could make her tea party with Ralph-san, Choko rode off towards the port of her game. "What do you think could've gone wrong, Sonny-kun?"

"Here's hoping it's not another AI issue; resetting noses is a messy business suited for the unfeeling." Skrillex-kun subconsciously wiped his nose and Choko giggled, prompting him to smack her upside the head. "But nothing you can't handle, brat. Just run over the competition."

Choko seriously pondered the costs and benefits of upgrading her Codemobile to be a battering ram on wheels as they entered GCS, nearly hitting a decorative shrub when Skrillex-kun tugged on her shoulder. Braking by the aforementioned shrub, she crossed her arms, "Sonny-kun, what—"

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

He pointed at a nearby port and Choko's eyes widened. "Is that..."

"Yep."

"And is that..."

"Seems like it."

"And are they..."

Skrillex laughed, slapping his knee as he leaned back into his seat. "It's about freaking time! Somebody owes me money, and I'm talking big money." Glancing back at the port, he shook his head and thumped his forehead against Mr. Waddles' seat. "I'm sorry, but I just can't right now."

Blushing on behalf of her friend, Choko pulled up to the port and honked her horn. "Come on, we need to check out the space opera!"

Honey-chan squeaked and jumped in the air, resulting in a tangled pile of yellow and blue limbs. Pulling herself together, she stuck her tongue out at a laughing Skrillex-kun and turned back towards C. Sonic-kun. She smiled at him, rolled her eyes at Skrillex-kun making a fool of himself, and gave C. Sonic-kun a goodbye kiss before heading towards him. Not that Choko thought the berry-red hedgehog needed any more PDA, but who was she to judge in the arcane rituals of love. Giving Honey-chan time to settle in the Codemobile, Choko graciously ignored the past few minutes. "Ready to go?"

"Not a word, hipster chump. Not. A. Word."

"Sure, sure, it's not like everyone in GCS saw that or anything, I'll keep this secret to—OW! My foking plugs!"

Choko let them settle their differences through the standard beating-the-filling-out-of-each-other, and patted Mr. Waddles on his blocky head. As she had helped C. Sonic-kun bring Honey-chan to life, she saw his devotion and pure adoration of her first hand, and was resisting the urge to throw them a giant tea party in congratulations. Skrillex-kun was right, it was about darn time!

Maybe it was the leftover cheesecake from Mr. and Mrs. Fix-It-san's wedding, maybe it was proximity to Mr. Waddles' cuteness, but Choko let herself sigh about a certain blue-suited hero on her way into Star Wars' port. It was a silly pipe dream, it would never happen as long as she was a twelve-year-old Sugar Rush racer, but she absolutely envied how Honey-chan was smiling out the cart's side, it was just so—

A TIE fighter blasted the earth from out beneath them, Choko glitching in her efforts to keep them from smearing on the ground. While her friends screamed and flailed, she accelerated into the darkness, their models evaporating into vectors. Suddenly the ground wasn't ground so much as free-floating space, and the Codemobile rocketed into the distance as Skrillex-kun screamed, "WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

"Now now Sonny-kun, I'm sure—"

"Look out!"

A swarm of TIE fighters appears literally out of nowhere, and Choko upshifted. For some reason she couldn't quite define, she had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

If racing around in Crazy Taxi was crazy, then using her cart as a spaceship was out of this world. Following the lead of what she assumed the good guys were doing, she made a quick barrel roll out of a TIE fighter's fire, Mr. Waddles shooting lasers at any enemy starfighter that dared come near her precious Codemobile.

High-fiving her pig, she threw her spacecart into reverse. Honey-chan untangled herself from the desperate hold she and Skrillex-kun were engaging in, and began to twitch. "Choko."

Mr. Waddles took out an enemy TIE fighter as Choko charged her weapons bay.

"What are you doing?"

A Death Star loomed in the distance, and Choko grinned; surely there would be answers there!

"Choko!"

Choko charged her pocky javelin, and taking a page from Vanellope-heika's move set, swung the spacecart around.

Skrillex-kun handed Honey-chan a microphone. "STAHP!"

The sound wave coupled with the launched javelin destroyed the entire armada of TIE fighters looming behind them in a large flash of vector-generated explosions, and Choko cheered as little pieces of light rained down on them. "Yay, new personal record!"

Mr. Waddles oinked happily as a group of X-wings circled around them, light glinting from their wire-frame models. One of them spoke through a speaker, "Hey, you guys are the Codebusters!" Immediately the others began a huge swirl of gossip and excitable chatter that made Choko blush; she'd never really interacted with fans before, beyond saving them from cool and unusual glitchy doom.

The more developed X-wing, most likely the player avatar, came to Choko's side. The cockpit opened and _hello_, she didn't know the main character was a blue-eyed blonde. "I'm Luke Skywalker, miss. Do you think your friends could help us?"

Choko giggled and blushed, and oh god she was NOT doing this again! She wouldn't allow it! "Well, since you asked so nicely..."

Luckily Honey-chan came to her rescue, and Choko swore to never make fun of her excessive PDA as long as they were in this game. "We'll be happy to help anyone who helped take down the evil empire!" They fist bumped. "Do you know what's wrong with your game?"

TIE fighters screamed out from the darkness, firing shots and it was just plain rude to interrupt people with a well-timed attack. Luke-san yelled out as he snapped his cockpit shut, "When we were downshifting the enemy AI for the end of the day, something went wrong!"

Skrillex-kun grabbed Mr. Waddles and pulled out his headphones, static flying from manically large eyes. Slapping the headphones on the pig, he transformed Mr. Waddles into a pig-stereo android, and blasted a sonic cannon blast towards the TIE fighters, jumping on to the back of an X-wing "Foking enemy foking AI in a FOKING ARCADE GAME!" He flew off towards the Death Star, leaving a trail of devastation behind.

One of the pilots coughed. "Is he always this...enthusiastic?"

Honey-chan grumbled and jumped into the shotgun seat. "Between getting his butt kicked and sticking his giant nose in private business, I guess he can be chaotic good on a goody day."

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey didn't like space. Not that the night sky in HD games wasn't beautiful to look at from a graphically limited perspective, but this blank darkness was too much like the void she went crazy in. Between that and Choko's psychotic driving, it boded very ill for any dream of become an astronaut.

"Choko, watch out for those enemy fliers!" Honey grabbed on to her seat for dear life as they made a barrel roll past a group of TIE fighters. "I'm out of my element here, what do I do?"

Choko bit down on a sugar dusted lip, gunning down the enemies with well placed pocky. "We need to infiltrate the enemy and take them down from the inside. This is just assorted candy compared to the main course."

Honey clutched on to her Action Replay, the blue keeping her grounded in zero gravity. "I assume the enemies are coming from the Death Stars, but they keep getting blown up too much to be an enemy base."

The Codemobile boosted past exploding vectors. "Wait—Luke-san said they tried to downshift the enemies. Surely there's a set enemy spawn point if they can manipulate the enemy behavior during normal game play when the code is most dangerous..."

Honey punched a TIE fighter in the face because she could. "That's right; when we went to Minecraft I got my mirror to do matches through a direct access point to that part of the console." Snapping her fingers, she expelled a burst of golden static to cause a TIE fighter to plow into his friends. Sucker. "And my Sonic told me that there's all sorts of places where the code is sensitive to manipulation. It's part of the reason why our Action Replays work outside of the code matrix."

Choko grinned and blew a squadron of enemies to bits, and Honey caught the glow-stick like remnants. "So if we blow up the enemy spawn point where the code hurts the most..."

"Then we can end this endless game and fix the code!" They high-fived and avoided being exploded. "Use the radio to alert Luke-san and get directions. I'm needed out here to keep the enemies from overflowing, but if you could be nice enough to do the heavy lifting?"

Honey manipulated the gumdrop dials and Luke Skywalker's voice crackled over the freshly baked stereo. "This is Red Five."

"This is Candy One, requesting location of enemy spawn point so I can kick major butt, over."

"It's twenty clicks to the general left. It's isolated behind a breakable vector wall, you can't miss it."

"ありがとう (Arigatou), Red Five. Candy One out."

Choko smiled. "I didn't know you consciously knew Japanese."

"What can I say, being a Codebuster has been a learning experience. Now let's go end this madness early; it's taco night back at the console, and I'm not going to let Nack use up all the corn tortillas."

* * *

Just like Luke said, the real Death Star was behind a beautiful array of vectors. Honey actually felt bad for Choko destroying it, but once an angry swarm of TIE fighters came shooting out the sentiment drained away. Stupid enemies trying to blow everything up, no wonder the evil empire was rightfully taken down. "Can you get me into the Death Star?"

"Oh Honey-chan, ye of little faith, do you think so little of my driving skills?"

"To be fair, you usually race on a track..."

"ONWARD!" Pocky exploded the vector models, chocolate and pieces of light whipping past their faces. The engine beneath their seats revved up and Honey could feel the power Choko lovingly baked into their cart. Gripping harder on to her cheat cartridge, Honey's eyes widened as Choko flipped them upside down to eliminate a group of starfighters swarming from below.

Choko giggled as they survived the attack, and Honey tried to relax. She was on a mission into deep enemy territory, she couldn't afford to freak out over the void. Seriously, she needed to get over it before Choko or Skrillex got themselves into a situation needing her fighting expertise and she was too busy going 'eek a dark scary place like the one where I watched my best friend/boyfriend/soul mate lose his mind'.

Thinking about him learning how to smile again—thanks to Choko, of all people—helped Honey get a grip and prepare herself. Choko flew into the Death Star, the surface more opaque than the space stations Skrillex was probably savaging at the moment. "Ready, Honey-chan?"

Honey narrowed her eyes. "If I die...tell Sonny he can have my eyeshadow." With that she launched herself into the glossy metal of the station, bringing her fists down in a blaze of static. The metal imploded with her impact and she face-planted in the spartan interior, thanking Chaos that she hadn't brought back her pigtails yet; scrunchies were deceptively painful in crash landings.

Shaking the emeralds out of her eyes, she looked around the corridor. Various stormtroopers and technicians were looking at her like she was radioactive—she blamed the vectors lights still stuck to her uniform—and she grabbed the nearest flunkie. "Take me to your leader before I defenestrate you into an active starfighter battle."

Never say that she wasn't diplomatic. A platoon of stormtroopers escorted her into the heart of the station, pale light from the vector-metal illuminating the fear in their faces. Ah, they were aware of the enemies going crazy and not happy about it; maybe she could pull a revolution and take down the baddies from the inside instead of just punching everyone.

Absently wondering how her Sonic was doing, she came to a halt in front of a prison cell. "Guys, I said 'take me to your leader', not 'throw me in jail so my friends can blow everyone to Chaos'."

"Don't worry, these guys are clean." A dark-haired girl in white came out of the prison cell and Honey admired the size of her hair buns. Maybe she should start experimenting with hair models. "Wait, aren't you a Codebuster?"

"That I am, Miss..."

"I'm Princess Leia, even though technically I serve no purpose in active game play and can't be reached normally." Honey knew those feels, it sucked to be added in by a programmer then be dummied out. "I suppose something went wrong with our game?"

"Yeah, TIE fighters are overflowing and trying to take out anything that has a vector." They started walking down the hall, heading to who knew where. She needed to catch up on her Star Wars movie info, maybe she and Sonic could watch a DVD in the computer room. "Before we can get into the code well and fix the enemy AI code, we need to stop them from the inside, which so happens to be here."

"Ah, smart decision. The throne room data is somewhere around here..."

They wandered the halls; the stormtroopers either were forbidden from directing them to the evil Emperor, or they didn't know themselves. Considering the data limitations in such a classic game, Honey was leaning towards the former. On the bright side, it was nice to talk to a girl her age. "So you've been stuck in this Death Egg—I mean Death Star, forgive me and my SEGA logic—ever since it got turned on?"

"More or less. Luke keeps trying to get me out of here but every time he just...fizzles into vectors and his knowledge of me resets."

Honey froze, because oh god it was the void all over again. "The same thing happened to me, expect my friend Sonic had a Game Genie and could remember my face. Even then I was trapped for sixteen years..."

Leia smiled sadly, and Honey wanted to blow up the Death Star and beat the proof of her existence into every person in this arcade. How many other characters were trapped in a void, dummied out by design or dastardly turbo-caused destruction? This was BS, this was pure chaos, this was the reason she became a Codebuster in the first place! Holding her Action Replay to Leia's face, Honey grinned a very predatory grin. "It's your lucky day, princess. I'm Honey the Cat, and I'm here to rescue you!"

* * *

The Evil Emperor of Evilness was cackling in his throne room, and Honey frowned. Wait, wasn't he introduced in Episode V, which came out after this game? Sure, technically he was around during this part in the time line—for some reason Nack really didn't want to talk about the prequel movies, and she had the feeling he made up everything before Episode IV—but why was he in the Death Star at all?

Leia shared her confusion, and she grabbed on to one of the stormtrooper's blasters. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Ah, Princess Leia, I see you're looking beautiful as ever. Well, as beautiful as a dummied out piece of garbage code can be, I suppose."

Woah, that was uncalled for. Honey raised her fists and let her wings glitch on to her uniform. "You don't exist in this game, you're very dummy-phobic, and who's to say this isn't the first time you've played around with the enemy code? This is an old game, nobody outside of the characters will notice the enemy AI acting up, and even then they could learn to see it as natural."

"Very good, Honey the Cat, but that's to be expected from someone as prestigious as a Codebuster. Be that as it may, however, a mere glitch can't possibly defeat me" The bastard stood from his throne and all the stormtroopers raised their weapons. "Stand down, you meager programs, and kneel before your emperor." Electricity crackled from his fingertips, and he was too detailed for an 80s game, too programmed for an enemy that didn't fly and oh god.

Leia's eyes widened and she shifted her grip on her blaster. "Before his memory reset again, Luke told me that there were 3 Codebusters. Do you think your friends can help us out?"

"Choko's keeping the TIE fighters from spilling into the arcade, Skrillex went off destroying Death Stars..." Honey gulped and gripped tightly on to her glowing blue cartridge, wishing desperately for a Chaos Emerald. "I'll send for help but for now we're on our own."

Typing quickly on to the translucent cartridge, Honey watched as Emperor Turbo quickly eliminated the stormtroopers with a lightning storm fit for a boss battle. "You have a clean late for reprogramming, princess. Let me teach you the ways of face-punching and not-dying and we'll see if it sticks.

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Choko checked her text message as she spiraled to certain doom, and screamed loudly enough to destroy the windshields of the TIE fighters. There was a dummied out princess? There was a program that went Turbo behind the enemy AI glitch? And he was trying to murder said princess and Honey-chan for the evulz?!

"すみませんが (Sumimasen ga), I must be going! Try regrouping around that Death Star, I believe Sonny-kun and the other X-wing fighters would love to battle you!" Choko swung her cart around and sped towards the real Death Star, wishing a most spectacular and sparkly defeat for the TIE fighters; they even let her reply to her text without shooting at her!

Shedding a single tear for her most valiant opponents, she blated through the beautiful vector shield and pressed down on the gas pedal. The throne room was apparently at the heart of the space station, and if she gained enough momentum...

Vector particles sprinkled her hair as she rammed through the floors of the Death Star. She crashed through an ornate pair of doors and despaired over the scratches in her frosting. Perhaps if she had Swizzle-kun look at the damage, she wouldn't have to—

Choko barely managed to hop out of her cart before it was sliced in half by a bolt of lightning. Cake matter splattered on her cheek, and she slowly turned towards the source of the cart destroyed.

Honey-chan flew into a figure robed in black, and who she assumed was Leia-hime was shooting from an Action Replay/Game Genie/whatever the Codebuster cheat cartridge turned into-enhanced blaster gun. They were putting up a rather good fight, but he was shooting electricity willy-nilly, and another bolt vaporized one half of the Codemobile.

Years later she would look back on that moment and call the explosion a thing of legend.

"手前は私の車を破壊した！この野郎！(Temee wa watashi no kuruma o hakai shita! Kono yarou!)" She ran forward, jumped off of Honey-chan's head, and sank her fist into the heart of this unimaginable bastard! How DARE he destroy her beloved Codemobile! The one she built herself, the one she loved as much as her own racing cart! And for what, so he could take over and terrorize this innocent game?! That stank of Turbo, how did monsters like this man and Turbo ever come into existence?!

As a Codebuster, she was morally obligated to fix the coding of any game, including destroying those who so gleefully screwed around with people's lives! Turbo came in and erased her so he could lock her queen out of her own game, so he could parade around in her king's corpse! Who's to say this emperor could've done the same to this game, she didn't know what the real character cast was!

This emperor, he could've killed Leia-hime and nobody would've known because she was like Honey-chan, and he didn't know how much she suffered, how much she and her beloved suffered for sixteen years before Choko could come and fix them! He didn't care, he lorded their unfortunate natures over them like a racing flag!

He could've added his own army into the code like Mr. Litwak-sama's nephew adding Skrillex-kun to a game. But unlike Toby Litwak-sama, the emperor didn't care about the miracle of life, he didn't care that at the core of it all, Skrillex-kun was one malfunctioning code line away from self-destructing under the weight of a computer-generated program existing in an entirely different processor! He came so close to breaking in Minecraft, splitting apart like her precious Codemobile that this evil bastard so carelessly destroyed!

Did he know what it's like to be a GLITCH? Did he know what it looked like to watch someone LOSE their mind? Did he know about the NOTHING after death? Did he know what it feels like to be UNMADE?!

Choko inhaled a much-needed breath, and startled as she felt beserker tears spilling down her cheeks. Carefully wiping them away, she noticed Leia-hime and Honey-chan standing in a corner, their expressions so sympathetic that Choko kinda wanted to cry. The evil emperor was a misshapen mass beneath her and oww, her hands needed serious TLC.

An explosion took out the west side of the throne room, a large TIE fighter landing gently on the vector-covered floor. A large man in a dark suit—Darth Vader-san, if she was correct—and...Skrillex-kun stepped out, Mr. Waddles bouncing to her side. Skrillex-kun, dressed in a spacefighter uniform and wielding what looked like a thin silver thermos stepped forward. "The TIE fighters have stopped advancing, although they are still building up. If we access the code well now, we can halt the enemy AI bug." He blinked. "Umm, I take it you guys had fun?"

Honey-chan laughed faintly, gesturing towards Leia-hime. "Can we call in my Sonic? We have some other recoding to do, and he's familiar with dummied out characters."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

"So let me get this straight." Vanellope rubbed her temples. "Some emperor phony went turbo in Star Wars arcade and Choko kicked his butt into next week after he blew up the Codemobile, Honey met up with a dummied out princess and restored her to the game, and Skrillex became a general in the United Empire-Alliance for Saving Star Wars while Darth Vader taught him the ways of the force. Did I miss anything?"

Choko coughed. "No, I think that's everything. Did she miss anything, Sonny-kun?"

Skrillex was in a corner with Luke Skywalker, having a lightsaber duel. Darth Vader had explained that they disconnected the emperor's code from their game before shipping his sorry molasses to the Surge Protector, who sucked him into the floor. Vanellope really didn't want to know what the Surge had in mind for punishment, but after the Turbo mess, he probably had years of built-up rage towards anyone who screwed around with code for the evulz.

Princess Leia herself was reprogrammed with the help of C. Sonic and a group of people from the computer room with access to voice clips. It wouldn't do to have a commanding leader without a voice, after all. Vanellope personally approved of adding Leia, as hard-knocking princesses were a rare sight around the arcade. Not that she was really a princess anymore, but that was a whole 'nother level of code drama best suited for her little minions.

Speaking of which, "So Honey, I heard that something interesting happened by your port today."

Honey turned bright red, and Vanellope idly wondered if infusing red berries with honey would be as sweet as it sounded. Skrillex grinned as Luke and Darth Vader huddled closer for the juicy gossip. "Oh, I made some good betting money today."

"I will personally tear you a new butthole, hipster scum."

"You see, earlier today before our lives took another lovely dip in code chaos—"

"I DARE you to keep going, Sonny Moore."

"Just ask Honey yourself, Your Queenliness, or you could ask the other guy too—"

At that moment C. Sonic decided to come walking in, escorting a brand new Leia into the meeting hall. Honey started strangling Skrillex, Choko deliberately turned away from the drama, the Star Wars characters shared a significant glance, and Vanellope smirked into her tea cup. Her Codebusters were just too much fun sometimes.

* * *

**ありがとう ****(Arigatou): Thank you**

**手前は私の車を破壊した！この野郎！****(Temee wa watashi no kuruma o hakai shita! Kono yarou!): You destroyed my car! You bastarrd! Note here that instead of using "anata" for "you, Choko used "temee". Temee/temae is much ruder and confrontational, and as anyone who has ever read a Naruto fanfic knows, it more or less has the connotation of bastard. It's almost always used by males, but Choko is that mad to start breaking through the gender language barriers.**

**I honestly did not intend for a program to go turbo and start screwing up Star Wars. I actually had no idea where this chapter was going, which was probably why it took SO FREAKING LONG for it to be written.**

**Anyways, Emperor Turbo screwed up the game's enemy AI to be a douchecanoe. That's all there was, since I'm tired of using faulty AI but didn't really have a choice.**

**Princess Leia does not exist in this game, but it makes sense for there to be a dummy Leia. After all, she was the only important girl/potential love interest for the hero (remember that George Lucas didn't intend for Leia to be Luke's twin until Episode VI. He was going to have a random chick be his sister, but then Lucas morphed the two together, which is why we have the squicky incest undertones until the Big Reveal). Honey wouldn't have let any dummied out character stay a glitch after what she went through, and had her fixed up all nice and stuff.**

**Honey and C. Sonic forever.**

**Anyway, that's it for this clusterfok of a chapter. I'm going to try and get back into the rhythm for updates, because I have three more big arcade events to happen before this story ends. Review if you like :D**


	14. Dragon's Lair

**Well hello there :D**

**After the disaster that was my little sister's 12th birthday party (I had to babysit for a pool party and a Six Flags trip; that's like 24 hours of indentured servitude) I didn't have the writing juices to pump out a new chapter. Then a reviewer from AoC, baroness/reindeerhorns from tumblr drew the most MARVELOUS fan art, and I was just so inspired. So thank her for preventing another hiatus.**

**Also, the Round Robin POV from DDR is making a return. You'll see why once I get some needed exposition and plot elements out of the way.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own shi—I mean I don't own Sugar Rush/Disney, Sonic the Fighters/SEGA, DJ Hero 2/Activision, or Dragon's Lair/Cinematronics, who went down a couple decades ago. Shame.**

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on the piece of paper laid before him. This single sheet would make or break his reputation—no, his life in the arcade. He needed absolute concentration, conviction, whatever other c-words that sounded important, to complete this task. Raising a hand, he brought it down firmly with a manic grin.

"Ooh, interesting color choice. But aren't leaves supposed to be green?"

Ruffling the fur on Tails' head, Skrillex smirked, "Not when you have a 16,777,216 pack of colored pencils, young grasshopper."

He and the casts of Sugar Rush, Sonic the Fighters and his own game were in one of the larger meeting halls in Queen Van's castle. Apparently Bob from Minecraft had intercepted an email that had their games in the details, so Vanellope rounded them up after hours. Suri brought up the idea of blowing off steam that didn't involve obscene acts around small children, and so began the Great Coloring.

He watched Sour Apple and Minty fight over which shade of green suited a green apple-mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, and shook his head; those Sugar Rush kids took flavors too seriously.

Take Choko for instance. The brat had eight different kinds of dipped pocky to choose from in her arsenal, but because her name was derived from chocolate, she'd beat your face in if you even suggested that no, chocolate probably didn't go well with pepto bismol after drinking too much of Tapper's multigrain root beer during one of their free nights off. That didn't go so well; Honey just laughed at him until he deleted the stomach cramps from his data.

Honey could honestly stand to be a bit sweeter, but she probably used up all her nice points on C. Sonic. The two were probably making out somewhere that wasn't crawling with twelve year olds, so Skrillex stole from Honey's pile of colored pencils. Served her right for extreme PDA, even if he was very much approving of the couple.

Queen Van showed up, wearing a white hoodie and purple striped leggings instead of her normal racing suit, and he noticed how her hands were shaking in her pockets. "Listen up losers, I have info on the statuses of our games." She scanned the crowd with large hazel eyes, then snorted. "Someone go get the lovebirds, I don't want to scar my child brain for life."

Nack cheerfully volunteered and came back a few moments later, Honey and C. Sonic held her his arms like footballs made of irate street brawlers. Dumping them on their butts, he motioned for Vanellope to continue and shared a knowing smirk with Skrillex.

"So it turns out that Mr. Litwak's nephew Toby is coming down from Washington with his friends to check out the games in our arcade. The thing that concerns us is that we're due for upgrades to our games, and he was just checking to see when a good date for code overhauls was."

Everyone started to talk at once, ranging from "Yay graphical updates!" to "Didn't we just get a tune-up in 2010?" to "Oh god what if we get our memories wiped?!". Skrillex noticed that Honey's hand was gripping her boyfriend's very tightly, and patted the Action Replay in his pocket.

Van shared his sentiment, waving down all their opinions. "I've talked to Clyde from Pac-Man, and I'm pretty sure our memories won't get wiped. Mr. Litwak wouldn't want to lose years of high scores just for a shinier game, right? So stop your blubbering Taffyta, you're making us look bad."

Waiting graciously for her blonde friend to halt her water works, Vanellope half shrugged. "Since summers are prime time for arcades, there's not really a good time for us to get upgraded. Mr. Toby and his gang are coming down in three weeks once their internships with Nintendo goes on break, but he won't be fiddling with our code until the kids taper off. That's all we know for now, Bob'll keep us updated in case things go sour."

With that everyone was free to go bother themselves. Skrillex had half a mind to finish his psychedelic tree guardian, but decided to shelve the project for later; C. Sonic and Tails were packing up their colored pencils, and he needed specific shades of pink-red-yellow before attempting the hellfire flames of awesome in the pic's background.

Vanellope called out over the din, "Oh, and the Codebusters have a new mission tonight. Dragon's Lair stopped working earlier today and we're not sure if it's a glitch or a problem with the Laserdisc."

While Choko said her goodbyes to her friends/former palette swaps and Honey dragged her blushing blue hedgehog into a corner, Skrillex froze. Crap, there wasn't a real computer in Dragon's Lair so his god mode hacking wouldn't work. That wasn't the issue—he was fine by himself, thank you very much—but he was set up right next to that game. Said game was a coin sinker because every five seconds the poor knight would drop dead from bad player reflexes.

Absently waving at Joel as he left, Skrillex hoped that his reflexes were up to the challenge, because he really didn't want to die because of something so weak as a foking lizard king.

* * *

Choko hovered outside the port to Dragon's Lair, wringing her hands together. "Is it true that we're going into a CD?"

"It's a Laserdisc, but the same rules apply."

"I've heard of games like these. Sega CDs for the home console market back in the 90s. But will the game even accept outside data?"

Skrillex paused at Honey's question. "I guess we'll find out. As long as we don't screw up the disc and cause it to skip uncontrollably we should be fine..."

Honey bit down on her thumb, eyes flashing with data. "...it's an interactive movie, right? That's the game play, just activate the right triggers at the right time."

"So we press X to not die and we'll be ok?" Choko nuzzled Mr. Waddles and Skrillex noticed the growing sense of adventure in her eyes. "If things go sour we can always have Honey to punch the bad guys to death. We have three players to our advantage, after all."

Skrillex grinned and ruffled her hair, taking care not to disrupt the pocky chopsticks she unlocked for her character sprite. "I like the way you think. Let's show them how computer-based characters are!"

They drove into the cord connecting the console, Skrillex bracing himself for the limitations of a Laserdisc. Once they cleared the port's threshold they repixelated into 2D animation, the sensation of chalk filling his limbs as he was cut off from true computer processing/the Force.

Choko parked neatly outside a creepy looking castle surrounded by thorn bushes from hell, and Skrillex had to admit she looked really pretty as a drawing. Her magenta hair was braided around her hair and bangs curled delicately around her face, and her gray jumpsuit turned into a layered pink dress and ballet flats. She looked like a princess that should be saved from a tower, if she wasn't so giddy with the thought of kicking so much enemy butt.

Honey...Skrillex readjusted his jaw as the girl in question did a double take. Apparently Don Bluth like his girl cats as cat girls, and she was transformed into a violet eyed Asian girl dressed in a white leotard with long black hair, giant boobs and a slinky cat tail with cute little cat ears. Ignoring the blatant racism and sexism, Honey rocked the cat girl look, especially in bright red high heeled boots that had no place outside of a dominatrix's fashion show.

He looked at himself and ok, he wasn't half bad. In fact, he was taller than Honey! Keeping down his grin in case she decided to murder him—judging from the tense energy coiled in her hips and shoulders, she was prepared to stab anyone in the face is they even breathed "hot"—he readjusted his heroic black armor and faced his companions. "Ok, so from what I know, there's some odd levels we have to go through until we get to save Princess Daphne, and probably Dirk the Daring too. Stick to normal game play, but if someone screws up a reaction don't hesitate to help a bro out. This game is notorious for the good ol' trial and death game play, and we don't want any funerals. So let's go kick some code, Codebuster style!"

They high fived and charged the castle. Sure, maybe it was considered cheating to have three characters playing at once, but what the heck did anyone expect from code masters wielding heavy duty cheat cartidges?

* * *

**Round Robin POV**

* * *

A woman wailed in the far distance as they approached the castle. Carefully crossing the rickety old bridge, Skrillex unsheathed a sword. "Let's get this over—"

He fell through the floor, slimy purple tentacle monsters rising from the moat. Choko squealed and jumped down onto one of their heads, throttling the evil one-eyed monster before it could do horrible things to her friends.

Honey managed to pull Skrillex out of the hole, slipping onto her knees because crap, the equilibrium of a human was just so strange! Choko grabbed onto her tail pulled herself away from the monster, kicking one to death for good measure.

They ran into the castle, an iron gate closing behind them, and the CD successfully skipped to the next scene.

* * *

They entered a room with three doors, and Honey took the time to tug on her leotard. "I don't think I like spandex very much."

The earth crumbled beneath them and Skrillex caught her around the waist before she could tumble to a very anti-climatic death. "I think you'd like making splat in an endless pit even more!"

"This way!" Choko ran through an open door, hiking up her skirts before rubble could come crashing down and turn their brains to roadkill. Honey tied her hair out of her face with a strip of Skrillex's under cloth, muttering as they went into the next scene about long hair being worse than leotards.

* * *

Skrillex flung his sword at a creepy ceiling tentacle as the girls took on creepy floor tentacles and cursed the day slimy extremities were ever considered for game enemies.

Jumping onto a stairwell as the floor more or less exploded with crawling green feelers, he noticed how the enemies were invincible during the pre-programmed cut scenes. Gripping onto his sword, he considered the tentacles sprouting from a trapdoor up the stairs, and shrugged. It wasn't cheating to kill evil squid arms when you had to protect two Japanese girls.

Somersaulting onto a table, he switched out his sword for the light saber Luke had graciously given him, and made short work of the calamari fodder.

Grinning at Choko, he handed her the sword; Honey loved hand to claw combat, and little princesses always needed a pick-me-up.

* * *

Choko squealed as a snake popped out of the ceiling, chopping off its head before it could bite her and infect her perfectly sugar balanced blood with evil snake cooties.

Another appeared out of nowhere in the fog filled dungeon and she sliced it in half down the belly, turning away because eww, snake guts were gross and why did Pollipop-chan love snakes so much they were just so gross!

She squeaked as yet another long, coily demon snake rose from the fog and she tackled it, tying it into a pretzel knot and screaming impure things about its heritage.

Someone, probably the more level headed Skrillex-kun, triggered a rope falling from the ceiling and Honey-chan grabbed onto Choko's bodice, hoisting her up before the longest snake she'd ever seen in her life could swallow her whole. "SNAKE!"

"Don't worry babychild, we're in the next—"

"Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes!"

* * *

Honey nearly fell into a pit of flames, trying to catch herself in her stupid super-heroine boots. Trumpets blared because the only way across were flaming rope swings and oh yeah, life was just fan-freaking-tastic at the moment.

"Ladies first!" Skrillex backed away like the wimp he was, and Honey wrung her distractingly delicate hands. Nope, fire was dumb, she was not going across.

"Banzai!" Never say that Choko couldn't bounce back from a newly discovered phobia. She swung effortlessly across the ropes, her small weight barely straining the ropes. The little princess landed on the other side and smiled brightly. "Come on guys, it's not that hard! Just don't look down!"

Honey nodded grimly and looked up—she looked up! Since when did he get to be taller than her!—at her knight in hipster armor. "Don't turn this into a habit, four eyes."

"I'd never dream of it, battle brat."

He grabbed onto her waist and jumped onto the burning rope, swinging low to the flames. Honey let out a very high pitched yell as the rope snapped, Skrillex quickly snagging onto the next rope before they turned to an ash pile.

Landing roughly on safe ground, Honey panted against his chest. "Never...again..!"

"Trust me Honey...I'd rather burn in those flames...than tell C. Sonic I stole his cat-turned-cat girl girlfriend."

Choko nodded sagely. "The fire will kill you in a single cut scene. The depression from such an evil act will probably destroy the entire arcade."

* * *

The ground fell out beneath his feet and how big was this foking castle anyway? Sidestepping the incoming doom, he motioned for Choko and Honey to wait. He carefully stepped on the cobblestone pathway, and was rewarded with daggers flying at his head. Honey tackled him and Choko into the pool of green water he really didn't want to go into.

Surprisingly enough the water wasn't made of acid or Kool-Aid colored lava, but it was filled with an armada of water snakes. Choko lost her cool and murdered all of them with her sword, half-drowning because screaming underwater wasn't the best choice of action.

Pulling a panting and coughing Choko out of the mess, he watched the rest of the room crumble around him. Now where was that stupid door...Skrillex tumbled across a growing ravine to Honey's side, triggering the next room before some other improbable death could ax them. As Choko caught her breath and Honey dealt with embarrassing stretches in her leotard, the newly minted knight groaned; barely six levels in and he wanted to throw his lot in with the snakes.

* * *

Choko stared into the bubbling cauldron as Honey-chan and Skrillex-kun tried to bring out the next death trap. It roiled so cheerfully in the gloomy dungeon, so much like Diet Cola Mountain's cola hot springs that she relaxed by the comforting sound.

The cauldron then proceeded to boil over and drench half the room in an evil green potion demon, Skrillex-kun knocking over bottles that added to the chaos. But of course.

Honey-chan punched the offending demon in the face hard enough to blast him against the wall, the green froth evaporating with a sad gurgle. Choko wanted to feel bad for it had the cauldron not spawned an evil ether witch who grabbed the smallest Codebuster.

Choko gasped as she felt the game trigger a death scene, but then Skrillex-kun's eyes flashed and he beheaded the witch in a move that would make any Jedi proud. She hit the ground with a thud as triumphant trumpets played, and she accepted the helping hands offered. "How did you..."

"I said earlier that CD skipping was bad...but then again, when have we ever followed conventional game rules?"

* * *

Honey propped open the trap door. "I don't see any obvious threats yet, come on up." She regretted that statement once a weird purple monster with a sword came barreling at her, howling like a monkey in the madhouse that had become her existence.

Skrillex sliced it in half, spawning two more from a door that conveniently appeared. Sizing up the hopping baboon beasts, the trio decided to abscond from the ludicrous situation, and sprinted up the curving staircase. Two more greeted them halfway, snarling and waving swords too close to Choko's face, and Honey straightened her sleeves.

Flipping over Skrillex's head, she kicked the two down the pit to their left, their monkey screams fading away as she turned to face the groupies that wanted desperately to trigger their death scenes. Oh, they wanted to play? Honey may have been turned into a flimsy little cat girl but she was always ready to play!

Choko had to drag her up the stairs after she pulverized the enemies, calling at their purple poofs of disintegration, "And the next smart guy who only stares at my chest during battle is getting my foot up his animated arse!"

* * *

The three tumbled down the suddenly smooth hill, Skrillex catching them on the stairs before they could die in the pit waiting below. More foking tentacle beasts appeared and Skrillex let Choko and Honey deal with the offenders, because this was still the beginning of a very long game and he was sick of tentacle monsters!

Stalking up the stairs he fell on his face as the surface turned into a curve. Choko saved him from death, small hands clamped around his ponytail. Honey pushed them through the exit hole and Skrillex solemnly swore never to tug on her pigtails ever again, because that was a kind of pain on par with screwing up an easy song in front of all your friends.

* * *

They groaned as possessed weapons tried to murder them, because the thrill of being 2D had worn very thin. Choko batted the flying hunks of death out of their faces with her sword, and yelled over the din of clashing metal, "Can you skip us to the end, Sonny-kun?"

Skrillex-kun froze, fingers flashing white ever so briefly. "Theoretically I can, but think of the danger!" He dodged a flying anvil, wheezing, "I could crash the entire system!"

Honey-chan punched an evil blacksmith in the face, snarling in righteous cat girl fury, "Don't care, skip as far as you can! Doesn't this game mirror half of the levels anyway?!"

His eye twitched before the entire scene froze, Choko feeling something akin to a meat hook pulling on her navel. Before she could blink they landed roughly in a twisted hallway, a nasal-voiced evil lizard king swinging a scepter at their heads. "This is the end level?"

"Close but not quite. I folded the game scenes on themselves, so we're close to saving Princess Daphne and getting the hell out of this animated animal house."

"Glory to that!" Honey-chan gasped as the lizard king oogled her body and turned bright red before tackling him. "YOU WANT CHAOS, BIG BOY?! I'LL GIVE YOU CHAOS!"

Choko watched Honey-chan regain her honor through turning a drawing inside out, eyes wide with awe. She was so cool, no wonder her love life was going so well!

* * *

They entered a large hall, much like the nightmare version of Queen Vanellope's meeting hall, and they caught a glimpse of a blonde clenched in a large green fist flying through a door way. She cried out, "Save me!" before the door crashed shut.

"It's Daphne-hime! Let's get out of here!"

But before they could follow Choko's sound advice and bail, a knight in an evil version of Skrillex's armor appeared. He stabbed the ground with his sword and electricity flashed through the tiles. Choko squeaked and jumped onto Honey's back, causing Honey to jump onto Skrillex's back and he resisted the urge to sink into the floor and die.

Forcing carefree memories of playing hopscotch in Guitar Hero into the forefront of his brain, Skrillex hopped across the ground. It was easy, he just had to not touch the glowing blue lava and keep his friends from falling over and dying in this cursed game, he didn't know why he was freaking out so hard, he promised!

Tripping, he crashed onto the knight and crushed him under the combined Codebuster weight. That triggered the next level cut scene, and Skrillex shrugged; it was rude to ask about a lady's weight, much less two ladies, so he was just going to accept the win before Honey killed someone important.

* * *

"Just how big is this castle anyway?"

"I started wondering that a couple stages back, before I made the Laserdisc skip ahEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAA—"

They plummeted as the circular platform they stood on decided that being an elevator was more productive. Honey pinwheeled her arms, tail latching onto Choko's waist. "What are we supposed to do now?!"

The platform paused briefly at a rickety plank, but Choko pulled on Skrillex's hair before he could jump ship. "It's a trap! Ride it out!"

They fell like that for half an eternity, picking up speed as Choko grounded her heels into the platform. Honey and Skrillex held onto each other and wailed into the chaos, the music growing louder and louder as they approached their doom. Finally Choko licked her finger and held it up before yelling, "JUMP FOR YOUR LIFE!"

They dove onto the landing as the elevator platform continued on its merry way, quickly running into the doorway. Honey panted for breath, ears twitching with relief. "How did...you know?"

Choko brushed off her skirts and smiled too prettily for their situation. "Double stripes will do that to a girl. Now let's continue with this lovely game?"

* * *

The pathway was dark and lead up to a waterfall and Honey pouted, which was a sight way too cute for Skrillex's continued survival. "I don't wanna."

"Come on, we're almost to the boss level."

"But it's so obvious, only an idiot would keep walking forward!"

Skrillex sighed and grabbed onto her elbow, pulling her forward. "Truth be told, the hero of this game is pretty dumb for a knight's standard. If he can do it, we can to."

She clutched onto his arm and too cute, she was too attractive as a cat girl and he really needed a girlfriend before he got his face beaten in by the angry cast of Sonic the Fighters. That cheerful train of thought was derailed as they fell through the floor, landing in a barrel in a river of glowing purple water. "Is this more Kool-Aid?"

"It's Chemical Plant Zone come to haunt a SEGA girl's grave, that's what!"

They approached a cave with "Ye Boulders" printed on a sign and Skrillex really didn't want to go. He let Choko maneuver her way in front, the small girl narrowing her eyes. "Take the oars and I'll guide you through. Something tells me boulders are bad for codebusting duty."

And really, it should've been easy to avoid these giant boulders, but the game gave them about two seconds to react, and they didn't have the game avatar's immunity to fatigue. With much yelping and complaining about leg room, they traveled into the "Ye Rapids" cavern and Skrillex became convinced that if there was a god, he hated the Codebusters.

Shrieking like three four year old girls discovering that Minnie Mouse was a child murderess, they sailed down the orange waves with the grace of a dead pigeon. Honey looked ready to hurl over the edge of their barrel, but held it in because the orange water was gross as it was. "I wanna get off..."

"Just hold on hon, we're almost to the final dungeon..." They entered "Ye Whirlpools" and thank goodness for boring whirlpools instead of giant underwater tornadoes. Choko gently guided them through the green water into a swift tunnel, the barrel crashing against a tower. Quick reflexes saved them from drowning, and they climbed up the chain into the doorway. Skrillex valiantly held Honey's hair out of the way as her stomach regulated itself, muttering to Choko's worried expression, "This princess better be the greatest princess of all time, because none of us are living today down."

* * *

They finally appeared in the dragon's lair, which was a vast cavern filled with enough gold and riches to turn the most straitlaced of code masters into frantic kleptomaniacs. Biting their hands and pulling their hair in order to keep focus, they noticed the dragon sleeping on a pile of gold, Dirk the missing knight frozen in a battle stance off to the side, and Princess Daphne, dressed in a glorified bathing suit, in a sphere.

Skrillex stumbled into an awkward tower of treasure as his blood pressure spiked, unable to think beyond the smoldering blonde luxuriating in her sphere. She was hella worth it, so foking worth it because she was hotter than a thousand Honeys put together!

Choko dove to stop the falling tower from awakening the dragon and Honey smacked Skrillex with her tail, whispering harshly, "You choose now to be a feather-weight toddler with no motor skills? Snap out of it!"

"But hot hot hot hot hot!"

The dragon awoke with a plume of fire, Honey knocking them down behind a dune of golden coins. The princess moaned and the dragon went back to sleep, leaving Honey to strangle Skrillex. "No, not hot hot hot hot hot! Keep using your upstairs brain!" She glared at the sleeping princess, mumbling so Choko wouldn't hear, "And what the heck did they use for her character model, magazine girls?"

They sneaked up to the sphere, where Daphne was waiting for them with an expression that thankfully went over Choko's head. Between Honey's cat girl body and Skrillex falling hard for this strumpet, Honey was ready to shove her fist into the next inappropriate joke made around Choko's immediate area.

"Please save me!" Daphne struck a pose and oriented herself in her magic sphere. "The cage is locked, with the key! The dragon keeps it around his neck!" She began motioning with her entire body, voice breathless and so princess-like it put Princess Toadstool to shame. "To slay the dragon, use the magic sword!"

Skrillex flushed so darkly that Choko wondered if his brain had been replaced with a sweet seeker. Honey rolled her eyes and motioned at the sword. "Go save the playmate, Casanova."

"Hot hot hot..." The dragon woke up and flames erupted around them. "HOT!"

Honey grabbed Choko and pulled her behind Daphne's sphere, rolling her eyes as the princess gasped like a 40s film actress. "Choko, Skrill is distracted by the blonde. If we want out of this chaos, we gotta have a plan of attack..."

"Leave it to me, Honey-chan!" Choko skipped off as the dragon began chasing Skrillex around the lair, feet glowing as she teleported through cut scenes. It was out of turn to grab the magic sword before the game activated that sequence from the Laserdisc, it was totally unfair...she skidded under the dragon's legs and threw the sword into its heart, killing the beast in a flash of green as it landed on Skrillex. "Oh, I hope I didn't kill him..."

Dirk awoke from his frozen stance, eyes flashing as he sank to his knees. "Ah jeez, who defeated the dragon?"

He looked up and grinned at Choko. "And what's this? Another fair princess?" Honey coughed beside the sphere and Dirk's eyes popped out of his head. "And a smokin' hot cat girl!"

"Trust me buddy, you don't want any of this." Skrillex dug himself out of the gold and patted Choko's head, cracking his back. Blushing fiercely as Princess Daphne gave him a come-hither look, he let Dirk save the girl and send the game back to the title screen. "But if you could be so kind as to tell me what's wrong with your game, I won't tell her you said that."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope watched Marzipanne braid Choko's hair into a Dutch crown, Crumbelina fashioning medieval-inspired dresses for all the Sugar Rush racers. Once the youngest Codebuster admitted that she liked the fashion from Dragon's Lair—with the very specific exception of Honey's appearance, for some reason—the fashionista from their roster had demanded a fashion tea party. Vanellope looked down at her beautifully tiered dress and smirked; she wasn't going to complain if she got free clothes out of the deal.

Skrillex had explained how the Laserdisc skipped over Dirk completing an animation, trapping the poor knight until they managed to save him and his questionable love interest. Now the DJ was drawing on a gingerbread table, adding what looked like cat girls and princesses and knights to the already impressive battle scene. Vanellope didn't want to ask, as Honey looked murderous when King Candy had mentioned wanting to adopt a cat.

Said Honey had left a while ago, ranting about female objectification and something called BST and Vanellope had the feeling that there was a blue hedgehog out there about to go on the date of his life. Snorting, she let her idiot Codebusters be and headed towards the bakery; if she was bringing medieval style to Sugar Rush, she needed a cart with at least three battering rams attached.

* * *

**HOLY CRAP THAT WAS LONG. Seriously, I wanted to do every scene from Dragon's Lair but I got so tired, and the story was dragging so much...**

**Dragon's Lair is famous for being a game based on a Laserdisc, the giant predecessor of the modern DVD. It relied on quick time reactions, triggering cut scenes depending if you succeeded in the story or died a hilarious death. They were notorious for malfunctioning due to having to skip around the disc so much during game play, which is why Skrillex was reluctant to cheat earlier in the adventure. This style of game play came back in the 90s with the SEGA CD add-on for the SEGA Genesis, so Honey knew a bit about that style of game.**

**Don Bluth was the head animator, and you need to see Princess Daphne in action. According to an interview, her model was based off the girls in Playboy magazines, and it _shows._ **

**As Honey was the eldest girl, she was reformatted into a sexualized cat girl, which is a dig at the Sonic OVA which featured Sera the Cat Girl/Love Interest Extraordinaire. Choko got turned into a figure similar to Princess Eilonwy from The Black Cauldron, the black sheep of the Disney canon. Skrillex got turned into a knight because just imagine that little bastard in a suit of black armor, it's adorable.**

**Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter! Especially the boring crap at the beginning, because I have lots planned for our darling Codebusters :D**


	15. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

**Hey look, it's Chapter 15! Let's add on extra crap to the arcade and screw with the dynamics some more! :D**

**Also, I'm finally done brain storming for the sequels to this story, which means less obsessing over Flavor Spectrum and more obsessing over Action Replay. Rejoice.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sugar Rush (Disney), Sonic the Fighters (SEGA; did you know it was called Sonic Championship in the US? I've been using the version I grew up with which was the wrong one...oops), DJ Hero 2 (Activision), and neither Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time nor Kingdom Hearts (Nintendo and Square Enix with credit to Disney Inertactive).**

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey relaxed into the bench, stretching aching legs into the air. The arcade had been filled with kids on summer break, all ready to fight over who got to pulverize Dr. Robotnik and bring business to her beloved console. And it felt so good to forget Codebuster drama for just a minute and actually hang out with her coworkers outside of questionable game environments.

Choko's hair was down from her immaculate bun, sheets of red-pink hair swishing as the excitable girl babbled about the latest gossip from Sugar Rush. Granted, it was gossip about kids too young for the really juicy stuff like crushes and murder plots, but Honey was surprised to find out that shy Bubblebetty kid pushed Taffyta into a taffy swamp for calling her chubby. She didn't know the girl had it in her.

And Skrillex was playing away on his laptop, looking too happy for a guy whose job was to make glorious music that could blow out speakers. He was still clued into Choko's tales, sagely advising the candy brat to send persipan to Marzipanne in apology for accidentally eating fruit from her hat. Honey idly wondered what fruit made of sugar tasted like—did it taste like orange candy or just candy?—before flipping his side cut for the principle of the action.

Avoiding a retaliation punch, she watched the crowds mill around GCS; Leia was arm in arm with Princess Peach from Mario Kart and giggling about girly things, M. Sonic and his Tails were running into Burger Time to probably eat their weight in chili dogs, and some weird kid in oversized shoes was looking pretty lost in the sea of game characters. Feeling bad for him, Honey motioned Choko to pause her tale about Rancis getting his head stuck in a dishwasher and walked over to the kid. "Looking for a certain game?"

"My friends and I are actually looking for people." He hefted the giant key he pulled out of hammerspace onto his shoulder, spiky brown hair bouncing with the sudden weight. "Do you know who the Codebsuters are?"

Honey pulled out her Action Replay, grinning as the kid's bright blue eyes went wide. "You're talking to one of them. Something wrong with your game?"

He nodded and pulled her into the crowd. Choko and Skrillex, probably wondering why some random stranger was stealing their friend, got their stuff together and followed Honey into the heart of GCS. There two blonde haired...elves of some sort, one a princess in pink and the other an incredibly hot warrior in green, stood nervously. Spiky haired kid ran up to them and grinned as Choko and Skrillex gasped. "I found the Codebsuters!"

"But they're—"

"How did—"

"Ah jeez, I'm sorry for being rude." Spiky haired kid grinned, pointing a thumb towards himself. "I'm Sora from Kingdom Hearts and these two are Princess Zelda and Link from Ocarina of Time. Our games have a slight problem, do you think you can help?"

Honey clapped her hands to change into her Codebuster uniform, smiling despite the sad knowledge that her down time was being taken over again. "The Codebsuters are here to help, no matter the game and game console."

* * *

After getting clearance from a very flustered Surge Protector, they left the power strip for the arcade games and headed into the electric wiring of Mr. Litwak's Family Fun Center. Reaching out to let strands of purple and gold twist around her fingers, Honey had to force her mind to stay focused on the task at hand. Noting how they turned away from the tunnels leading to the computer room, Sora led the Gummi Ship—and wasn't that a name begging to be used in Sugar Rush—further into electronic Narnia until they finally ended up in another game station.

Helping Choko and Skrillex out of the cramped ship, Honey's eyes grew wide as she saw a Sonic much like her own Sonic nap on one of the benches. Beyond him were Mario and Luigi racing Yoshis down the main way, Lara Croft and Samus entering a terminal called "Famicom", three different Star Foxes arguing in a corner...Honey leaned against the ship. "What room is this?"

"Mr. Litwak remodeled an old office to host console games for birthday parties." Zelda glided over to the arcade game characters, smiling kindly at their dumb expressions. "They were such a hit that now the room is open to everyone during business hours."

"It's a great idea if you ask me." Sora jumped out of the cockpit, waving his key around with his arm motions. "An arcade by itself with such awesome games is fine, an arcade with games and a computer room can keep it from going under, but an arcade with the whole spectrum of game consoles? That's perfect business."

Skrillex laughed, patting Sora on the back. "I like this kid. That's exactly what Toby Litwak said when he installed me into my own game." They walked down the power strip, Choko squealing and waving at racers from Sugar Rush 2000. "You can go swap stories with them after our job's done."

"And here we are." They stopped in front of two ports called "PS2" and "Nintendo 64". "Our home games are in those two; we managed to stop the problem from spilling out into the actual consoles, but we need your help." Zelda took Link's hand, easing his stern expression. "Rumors always spread down the power lines, even if we're so isolated from the rest of the rooms, and if the Codebusters could save an arcade game..."

Honey shared a glance with her friends, then nodded. "What exactly are we going up against?"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

"That."

That turned out to be heartless rampaging across the landscape of Hyrule, turning the normally lush landscape into a nightmare realm. Even Poes and Stalfos were running around screaming, trying not to get absorbed by the evil.

Honey started ranting about how enemy AI was the worst thing to have ever been created while Choko started interviewing the Poe Sisters about the carnage and spread of the heartless. Skrillex pulled out his headphones, noting how the soundtrack of the game was glitching and trying to access themes that didn't exist. "So how exactly did this happen?"

"We figure a curious heartless ran off and got lost in this game before multiplying." Zelda shuddered as Link saved them from being attacked by a giant glitching heartless, rubbing her arms. "We haven't heard from Young Link or Zelda since the infestation began, but hopefully if they're overwhelmed they won't be deleted."

"That makes sense." Choko pulled out a map from the pause screen and started marking the areas of devastation. "The Forest Temple and surrounding Lost Woods, Deku Tree and Kokiri Forest are covered in heartless; Beth-san says that she and her sisters barely got out in time, but their friend Saria-chan was dragged down into the darkness."

They all took a moment to mourn over a terrible death like that, and Choko swallowed, hands shaking slightly. "Because of the natural darkness from the Shadow Temple and the Kakariko Well, everything above this field has been taken over. Zelda-hime and Link-san were in Kingdom Hearts at the time of the great surge of heartless, but they're the only ones accounted."

Link held Zelda close as the Codebusters took in that detail, Sora sputtering about any other survivors. "The desert areas by Gerudo Valley were taken over but Beth-san says the Gerudo 泥棒女性 (dorobou josei) escaped into a Great Fairy's Fountain. We must assume that all dungeons and temples are compromised because of the natural darkness here..."

"Not entirely true." Beth floated forward, eyes narrow slits in the darkness. "From what I've been told, the heartless are repelled by a force within the Water Temple..."

Link and Skrillex groaned, the former dropping his head onto Zelda's shoulder. "That's great, the most evil place in all of Ocarina of Time is the safe zone." Sighing, Skrillex eyed the heartless swarms with pure hatred because how dare enemies from his favorite game make him go to such a notorious time-stealer? Nodding at Link, he pulled out his lightsaber, code flashing behind his eyes. "Choko, you're viciously protective; I need you and the Poes to keep Princess Zelda safe at a Fairy Fountain of some kind."

"Hai, Sonny-kun!" Choko turned her pocky chopsticks into pocky daggers, forming a protective moving barrier around the princess, who began to glow with power.

"Honey, you're the heavy-hitter; can you and Sora try and reclaim some of the land here?"

Honey grinned, wings popping out of her back as she took a cheering Sora and flew into the fray.

Skrillex turned to Link, and held out a hand. "That leaves us to go and figure out why the Water Temple is so anti-heartless. Ready to save the day again?"

Link grabbed onto his hand. "Hya!"

* * *

"Ok guys, just keep your Action Replays at hand in case I need to call you bastards." Skrfillex fiddled with his glowing blue cartridge with his left hand as he punched a heartless with his right. "Let me just...ok, they now function as walkie talkies. Gotta love god mode."

"_Roger that, hipster breath. Currently committing gross genocide with approval of Sora."_

Skrillex turned to see Link picking off heartless with a slew of light arrows, face dead serious as he thinned the ranks with giant glowing arrows of doom. Deciding that wouldn't do, Skrillex pulled out a stereo set and /soundtrack select Town. The heartless looked at each other as the track began to play, the serious facade in Link's face cracking as he killed the enemy invasion to perky music.

The last of the swarm evaporated into black dust and the two guys giggled into their palms, before composing themselves as another swarm appeared. Pulling out his lightsaber, Skrillex wondered if his weapon of choice could also be super effective in the doom department. Poking a heartless with the tip of his sword, he watched as the wretched thing sizzled and imploded. "Awesome."

"_Are you there, Sonny-kun?"_

"Loud and clear, babychild." Skrillex watched Link's back, slicing down those ballsy enough to take on the Hero of Time.

"_So we escorted Zelda-hime into a Great Fairy's Fountain—not one with the Gerudo women, but one filled with black fairies. Are there supposed to be black fairies in this game?"_

"Kill as necessary, those are more in line with Majora's Mask than Ocarina of Time." Skrillex whistled as Link, out of arrows, pulled out the Master Sword and span like a top of glowing heroic death. If there was only a girl Link who liked short guys with big noses...

"_Ooh, they're heartless transformed by the pure love and magic of the fairies! They've sworn loyalty to our cause and showed us how to teleport to other fountains with Zelda-hime's power! Can I keep them?"_

Skrillex allowed himself to be thrown by Link into a pile of heartless, using his lightsaber like a glow stick dancer at a rave. "Only if you think Mr. Waddles won't mind."

"_He'll love them! Roger that, Choko out."_

Skrillex admired the carnage he dealt, kicking a crawling heartless in the face because screw that guy for invading and polluting a game. Nodding at Link, he saw Lake Hylia in the distance and /soundtrack select CUSTOM TRACK Legend of Zelda Theme Remix. They walked into the area to the most heroic song ever and Link finally grinned and swaggered like a true hero; mission accomplished.

* * *

Lake Hylia was indeed free of heartless, and enemies that would normally trip over themselves to kill the good guys were gratefully leading them to the Water Temple. One of them, a Skull Kid, trembled by the water. "You gotta save my friends, the ones who let me play ocarinas with them."

Link did an affirmative gesture—Skrillex really needed to get Honey to teach him how to speak non-speak—and Skrillex cocked his head. "Do you mean Young Link and Saria?"

Skull Kid nodded, bones rattling. "Them and the Kokiri are different now, all black with evil yellow eyes..."

Skrillex frowned. Now they had to deal with Antiforms of kids who knew combat in between culling the heartless and figuring out where the heck they were spawning from. Sighing, he followed Link into the water. "I'm assuming that I'm going to drown in this temple a lot, which is bad since I don't regenerate. Have an idea?"

Link tapped his chin, before pulling out his Zora tunic. Skrillex ran a hand over the cloth and /cloneobject Zora Tunic. Now they both stood proudly in blue, Skrillex upgrading their boots to sink but not take so foking long underwater. The Water temple loomed below the water, and Skrillex squeezed his Action Replay. "This is gonna suck."

They entered the Water Temple, and Skrillex compared the soundtrack's strings to the screams of frustration imprinted in his character bio. "I don't need you to be on the look out for suspicious things that are repellent to heartless, right?"

Link smirked and led him to the right, sinking to the bottom of the temple so they could drain the water, find the map, yadda yadda yadda. Fingers itching to just auto-complete the temple, he forced himself to follow the blonde hero, noting that Ruto was missing from her designated spot. "Maybe she got eaten?" They shared a shrug and floated to the top, getting the map and playing the ocarina to drain the water.

"_Hey Skrill, you got a second?"_

"Yeah, what's the problem?" Skrillex lit a set of torches with his lightsaber as Link searched for pots to kill for more arrows.

"_We met a bunch of freaky dudes with glowing eyes by the castle. Sora says that they're actually NPCs and whatnot, and we need to exorcise them of the heartless before we can reset the game code."_

"I heard that Young Link and the kids from Kokiri Forest also got infected." The temple was devoid of monsters, small keys and chests just appearing in rooms. Link looked very unnerved, and the wide, empty spaces of the Water Temple made Skrillex's skin itch.

"_Sora, can you—thanks. Did you find the source of the Heartless-Be-Gone? Sora says—nice key swing, dude!—that he can equip that power to his keyblade and finish off the spawn point for the heartless."_

"We're working on it." A whirlpool added interference to Skrillex's cartridge, and he needed to stab something. Stupid lifeless temple.

"_Well keep us posted. Honey out. Sora, have you ever dive bombed a giga heartless before?"_

Skrillex held onto Link as they swung up to a platform bearing a triforce symbol; between this and Dragon's Quest he was considering taking lessons from Pitfall. Link made sure not to drop him, which Skrillex was very grateful for because he was a big baby and bruised easily, and watched the water rise to their level. "Going down."

Skrillex blew bubbles as they descended and screw the Water Temple for making him have to pee in a world where nobody had that function. Link absconded to go get the compass and Skrillex wondered if his lightsaber worked underwater. After burning the crap out of his hands and hair, he decided to never be so stupid ever again.

Yet despite the annoying platforming and the heartless apocalypse raging outside, Skrillex missed the enemy life in the temple. There was just too little noise, Link's non-speech not helping, and Skrillex was a creature of sound—there couldn't not be things making a ruckus! Staring at a tense and twitchy Link out of the corner of his eye, the Codebuster pulled out his iPod. "What do you know about cheesy Euro-pop?"

Evidently not enough, because if "Mr. Wonderful" was enough to make Link fall to the floor laughing, Skrillex was going to have to stage a concert for the entire home console room. But he laughed with his friend and filled the empty slots in the Water Temple with life, and that was good enough. "Hey, isn't this the sub-boss room?"

They opened the door to the murky room filled with fog and the creepy tree, but they jumped when Dark Link appeared from the ground. "Hey, I thought everyone was gone!"

"That's because I threw everyone out after the heartless ate my fiancee." Dark Link crossed his arms, before snorting. "And nice choice of music, Prince Zelda. But may I ask how you're able to do that...and who's the short guy?"

"Long story short, I'm from another room in the arcade and I'm here to figure out what's repelling the heartless from this area." Skrillex ignored the dig at his height because it was pointless asking a bad guy with that much attitude to respect the vertically challenged.

"Hmm, Ruto was talking about rumors of a team of code masters." Dark Link stretched, unsheathing his sword in the process. "But back to the bigger problem. Turns out I'm a higher level of evil than those heartless, and once I made my displeasure at Ruto being turned into a demon known they ran off." He paused, then grinned with bright white teeth in a blank gray face. "But I'll be glad to help get rid of these bastards."

Skrillex and Link gulped and felt bad for the reign of terror they were about to unleash.

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey cheered as Sora brought fire down upon the heartless outside Hyrule Castle. Maybe she was getting high off of the black plumes of evaporated evil, but she was really enjoying having an all out brawl with a guy who could bring down lightning from nowhere as easily as bashing a heartless in the face with his keyblade.

Dodging an attack, she plowed through a group of blobs into a bunch of pots, earning health and monies for her troubles. Admiring the rupees—she bet she could get them turned into jewelry—she turned to see Sora being blasted into a wall. "You feeling ok?"

"I'm feeling great! This is awesome!" And it was, ignoring the horror story of a kingdom being turned evil by an lifeless sea of darkness. The Antiforms of a few NPCs came lumbering forward and Sora cut them down, freeing the NPCs from the darkness inside their hearts. "Darn, I should've invited Riku and the other guys here, but they were at their knitting club tonight..."

Honey was about to tease Sora for having such lame friends, but considered her own cast members; no one who was associated with Nack "I cried for three days over my zine subscription being delayed" the Weasel and Bark "Has a shrine to Rainbow Dash in my closet" the Polar Bear has to room to tease over something so productive as knitting.

Eventually they fought their way to the castle grounds, heartless and Anti-guards swarming the places like ants on a picnic lunch. And like ants on a picnic lunch, they deserved to be destroyed, so Honey tore a heartless a new mouth across its belly. Sora pulled out another keyblade and dove in like a god of war, and Honey shook her head; there was something about heroes from a home console game that was just so attractive.

Taking a move from her much-more attractive boyfriend, she span into a group of heartless and ripped them to shreds, punching and kicking without end. The darkness evaporated over her fists to choke at her throat, and she was getting serious void-vibes from the heartless swarm. Pushing those dark thoughts of out her mind, she yelped when her Action Replay went off. _"Skrillex to psycho battle girl, are you with me?"_

"Honey to annoying dupstep hipster, you got my attention Sonny." She drop kicked a heartless before he could sneak up on Sora.

"_We found the source of the heartless repellant, and we're warping to a Fairy Fountain to meet with Choko and the other girls. Where are you?"_

"At the castle. It looks like all the heartless are coming from this point." She gazed up at the very evil clouds spinning around the castle, globs of darkness rising from the walls. "Oh yeah, we found the spawn point."

Static crackled over her Action Replay. _"We're teleporting to your location now. Skrillex out."_

With a flash of light the other members of their party showed up, Zelda equipping Link with light arrows so he could genocide some of the heartless. Choko and the Poe Sisters smiled and waved, surrounded by both light and dark fairies, and a group of Gerudo pirates ran into the chaos and struck down a huge swath of heartless before they could think to run away.

Sora looked into the far distance, where a large group of Antiforms were silently approaching. "Did you guys bring the source? We're going to need my keyblade to take out all those Antiforms and stop the darkness from spreading."

"I'm right here." Dark Link stepped forward, and all the enemies in his immediate area scurried off to be killed by Link and the Gerudo. "Let's get this done, brats."

"Right then. Dark Link, sir, I need you and the princesses to hold your hands over my keyblades."

"Wait, princesses?" Honey cocked her head; unless Skrillex counted as a princess, there was someone missing.

"Yeah, Zelda and Choko." Sora watched the assorted team blink, Choko tugging on her uniform. "You two are Princesses of Heart, right? I mean, I guess not technically since you're not from my game, but neither of you two have darkness in your hearts, so the same rules apply for what I need."

Honey nodded. "Princess Zelda, who uses light powers and is super holy across her franchise, and Choko, the girl took on death and came back as pure as ever, would definitely be Princesses of Heart or whatever. Keyblade of power now?"

A blushing Choko and Zelda flanked Dark Link, their hands interlinking over the offered keyblades. They began to glow, light mixing with dark, and the keyblades morphed into one. It was a double edged steel keyblade etched with glowing strands of blue light, the teeth composed of pure gold. A tiny triforce made of dango was the keychain, and when Sora gently grasped it, it mirrored into two. Honey breathed, "What kind of keyblade is that?"

"It's made of one part pure darkness and two parts pure light, and I think it can defeat anything." Sora swung them through the air, and the splitting wind created lightning that sounded like music. "I'll call it the Majestic Thunder."

"That key's about to get some action!" Honey pushed a heartless out of attacking range as the Antiforms rushed forward, lifeless yellow eyes glowing into theirs. Two small forms led the attack, and Honey could only watch as Link yelled in outrage and led the defensive attack.

It turns out that angry people made the best melee fighters. The Gerudo women were angry for being ousted from their homes, the Poe Sisters were furious about their friend Saria being possessed, Dark Link was outraged about the loss of his fiancee Ruto, and whoever thought it was a good idea to take over Young Link and Zelda, who were like little siblings to big Link, was going to die a very painful death. Between them and random field enemies joining in the fight for their home's liberation, the Antiforms didn't stand a chance against Sora and his volunteer army.

Honey ducked as a slayed Antiform's darkness soared over her head, the electric glow of the Majestic Thunder making its way towards the castle. Zelda cheered as Young Link and Zelda were saved from the darkness, petite Kokiri warriors avenging their brief stint as enemies. Choko pointed at a figure high up in a tower. "That's the source off all the darkness in this game!"

Zelda and Link looked at each other, before the princess remarked dryly, "We shoud've known the heartless would have been hijacked by Ganon."

"What?" Honey didn't understand why Zelda and Link were laughing, but as long as he kept slicing up enemies with his Master Sword and she kept overriding her code and shooting light beams into the madness, it was fine.

Sora broke through into the castle and began to climb up the sides. Choko looked up from where she was directing dark fairies to siphon off darkness from the Antiforms, "Sora-kun! Can you even access levels that way?"

"With this keyblade I can! Look!" And Honey had to sit down and laugh because somehow, the Majestic Thunder was also a functioning Action Replay that allowed him to bypass the castle dungeon and drag a large mass of darkness directly down to their level. "This is definitely our guy!"

"FEAR ME, FOR I AM THE TRUE GANON, LORD AND MASTER OF—"

A green haired girl threw a glass bottle at his head. "GET HIM!"

The foreigners to Hyrule stood back and watched as every able-bodied man, woman, child of all sizes and racers beat the crap out of Anti-Ganon into a green splattered pulp. Once they were done blowing off revenge steam Sora skipped over and bashed him over the head with the Majestic Thunder. A large crackle of blue energy shot into the sky and transformed the entire landscape, darkness evaporating from the game as everyone cheered.

Honey looked at Skrillex and Choko. "The kid knows his way around an Action Replay."

Choko hugged her fairies close. "Can we keep him too?"

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

"...and then I broke the lock on our memories that I put when I got rid of Virus-Van, and it's just been smooth sailing since."

The amazing technicolor population of Sugar Rush began talking all at once, demanding more details on how their fellow franchise game was faring. Vanellope was quietly freaking out because there was another version of her sitting at the tea table, and Choko needed to apologize for discovering all these extra arcade rooms.

Vanellope was hosting a complete arcade wide party in her castle, people from all known games—and she meant all this time, darn it!—milling around and getting acquainted across the gaming spectrum. Some arcade characters by the door to the home console room had known there was an extra room, but they had assumed it was the computer room. Well, now Vanellope knew what King Candy always said about assumptions.

Said King Candy was organizing transportation between the three rooms, various people relaying information to their local Surge Protectors and swapping tips on how to keep rowdy kids from game jumping across the electricity mainframe.

She spotted people she knew in the sea of new faces. The M. and C. Sonics were talking excitedly with a group of Sonics that span the ranges between their models, too hyper and blue for their own good. Felix was having a serious discussion with an old man in a quieter corner, before hugging his companion and crying into his shoulder. The incredibly scary Dark Link and his fiancee Ruto were laughing with Donkey Kong and Pauline, instead of watching the youngest game characters like they were supposed to. All these faces, Vanellope was getting kinda dizzy trying to name them all for Nilla Beanson's notepad, but then she saw her favorite pink-head and smiled.

After spending a good deal of time talking with Choko 2000, Choko had returned to talk in a huddle with the Codebusters, Sora, Princess Leia and Bob. They all came to an agreement and approached Vanellope's throne once the Sugar Rush 2000 racers ran off to mingle and be annoying somewhere else. "You licorice losers have something to tell me?"

Skrillex came forward, motioning towards Sora's giant keyblade. "Sora helped us reset Ocarina of Time with his Majestic Thunder keyblade, which is a functioning Action Replay. Between him, Leia's knowledge of dummied out content and Bob's indestructability...we think there should be another set of Codebusters. I mean," he threw his arms out wide, "look at how many games are in this arcade. What if two go down at the same time? What if we get disconnected during a black out and need to fend for ourselves? They're willing, we're willing, but we need you to sign off on us."

Vanellope considered the proposition. It wouldn't do to ignore the facts he presented, and the Codebusters had done more for uniting the entire arcade than anyone else had since the place opened. She smiled; what kind of queen would willingly let her people and the people of other games suffer for nothing? "I'll talk to the Surges after the party. Are you guys willing to share the glory?"

Skrillex smirked, Honey snorted, and Choko flat out giggled. "Oh Vanellope-heika, if we were in it just for the glory, we would've bailed back in Super Monkey Ball."

* * *

"Here are your Action Replay cartridges. Sora, you have one in your Majestic Thunder—speaking of which, did that eliminate your other keyblades?"

"Nah, I just regenerated them and integrated this one as its own weapon. The directions in this thing are super helpful."

"Does this jumpsuit look right to you?"

"Hmm, we need to get you a larger size Leia-hime, you've grown some since I last saw you. Have you been working out?"

"And you're sure this won't disappear if I explode?"

"I'm pretty sure, I had Bean try and blow it up all night and the fabric stayed stable."

"...are we all ready?"

"...I think we are."

The two Codebuster teams stood facing each other, decked in gray and red and smiles too big to contain on their faces. Linking arms, they walked into GCS, ready to keep all of the arcade running and maybe have some fun on the way.

* * *

**泥棒女性 ****(dorobou josei): literally thief women. As one of the enemies in OoT are the "Gerodu thieves", it made sense for Choko to take that literally.**

**And we are at the halfway point of Action Replay! There's a second squad of Codebusters (Sora, Leia and Bob) present, but this story is about our favorite trio, so don't fear for a sudden perspective shift.**

**As explained, the heartless from Kingdom Hearts got itself lost in Ocarina of Time and managed to sneak attack Ganon. As the source (I officially have overused this phrase) of evil in this game—although not necessarily evil himself—he became Anti-Ganon and started spawning infinite heartless into Hyrule. Once they got to the Shadow Temple and the Bottom of the Well, the creepeiest and darkest places ever, they exploded and got everywhere. But once Anti-Ganon was destroyed, the heartless were eliminated.**

**It may seem like a stretch to include a home console game room in an arcade, but this is Litwak's Family Fun Center, which entails more than the average James Games for game selection. Not to mention Toby Litwak/Sora's logic: now that Mr. Litwak has all the game bases covered, even allowing outside games for the game and home console rooms, he has ensured that his business will never dry up.**

**Also, I once went to an arcade with a home console room and spent too much of my life playing Mario Kart Double Dash. Effing love that game.**

**If anything confused you here (heartless, Princess of Heart, Water Temple, etc.) GO AND PLAY THOSE TWO GAMES. At the very least look them up, because those games are BIG DEAL games.**

**The "custom track" that Skrillex plays can be found here: you tube dot com slash watch ?v= UOa4t XG4EQo**

**Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter and all the little jokes and lampshade hanging I threw in there!**


	16. Xtreme E-Z Livin' 2

**And we're back! Last time, I introduced a home console room and a back-up team of Codebusters that aren't the focus of this story but are important for later stuff and stuff. Also, I finally watched the stuff from E3—even though it's been like what, a month?—and WTF NEW SMASH BROS WII U 3DS WII FIT TRAINER CLASSIC MEGA MAN WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS?**

**But I digress. We're heading into more familiar territory, but not necessarily well-known territory. Or maybe everyone knows all about this game, idk, I'm just trying to write a good fanfic here.**

**This chapter has less action and more Vanellope than I planned, but I really need to start getting this story rolling. After all, if chapters 10 and 15 were important, then chapter 20 is the show stopper :P**

**Disclaimer: I'm not these people: Disney (Sugar Rush, Xtreme E-Z Livin' 2), SEGA (Sonic the Fighters) or Activision (DJ Hero 2)**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Yawning to the cotton candy heavens, Choko relaxed in the seat of her upgraded Codemobile. After the Star Wars mess she'd been plotting to completely redesign her mode of code busting transport, but training the new Codebuster team had taken up quite a bit of her after work hours. And while it was fun being a kickin' sensei to her pupils and making new friends, it was hard work teaching why it was a bad idea to run into a code well willy-nilly.

Sora-kun was shaping up to be a fine leader with his deep-set principles of honor and courage, and Bob-kun was an enthusiastic font of all knowledge, but they had traces of Leeroy Jenkins in their code. Luckily, Leia-hime was both diplomatic and unafraid to use physical discipline to keep her friends in line, and Choko sent them off to their first mission in House of the Dead with high hopes. They returned victorious and only half covered in grime, and the new team of Codebusters was earning their own reputation as a top-notch group of code masters.

Now she was waiting for the all-clear to go and pick up her own team mates and head over to a client's game before her play date with Mee Mee-chan and Roll-chan started. Mr. Litwak-sama himself had sat down to play their story mode at the end of the arcade day, and she prided herself in being a top tier boss; not only did it give her time to finish her cart, but being a bad guy for a little while was lots of fun. It certainly gave her a rush unlike eating a giant pack of Nutella pocky.

Vanellope-heika got a thumbs up from a marshmallow camera man, and stretched. "That's the end of the day guys. Got some objectives for you candy brats...Crumbelina, some girls from The Sims 2 are inviting you over to their game to talk fashion; Taffyta, your candy reps are complaining about irrigation laws in the swamps, you need to tell them to stuff it; King Gramps and I have a tea party with heads from the arcade...all the former palette swaps are requested to meet with Mortal Kombat fighters and talk about originality; and Choko, you're headed out to Xtreme E-X Livin' 2. Everyone else scram."

Powering up her cart, Choko took off towards the exit, Mr. Waddles oinking contentedly in his seat. She had upgraded his code to be more sturdy—she didn't want a stray glitch attack wiping out her favorite pig!—and patted his diamond hard head, whistling her boss theme into the echoing cord of her game. Skrillex-kun and Honey-chan were waiting by the go-karts, discussing the pros and cons of shampooing every day as compared to every week with cleansing conditioner.

"I'm telling you Sonny, even your hair type would appreciate the new formula I pawned off M. Amy. Just running it through the cleaners every day strips it off its healthy oils."

"Well, I'll think about it; I need to talk to Rancis on how it'll interact with the flugger oil serum..."

Choko giggled because her coquettish Japanese character programming found boys discussing proper beauty styling most amusing, and got a smack upside the head by the resident DJ. Acknowledging that she deserved that, she let her friends get settled and drove into GCS. "What does anyone know about Xtreme E-Z Livin' 2?"

"Well, it's an arcade port of the same game, which is incidentally in the computer room." Skrillex-kun started counting on his fingers, eyes fixed on a faraway point. "It's the third game in its series, it runs on a popularity currency, the main goal is do whatever feels good even if it's not necessarily legal, and I think there's even a street racing mini-game."

Choko tightened her grip on the steering wheel; she was a connoisseur of all races, and that sounded like fun. "Do you think the mini-game bugged out? Because I'd gladly volunteer for fixing that mess."

Honey-chan ruffled her hair, probably grinning like the Cheshire Cat in the back seat. "The poor glitch wouldn't last a second against you." Honey-chan looked out the side of the cart, tugging on a pig tail. "But it does bring up the question of what went wrong in this game. Tails said that some guy ran out frothing at the mouth around closing time, demanding the Codebusters show up. Had to get sedated by Dr. Mario, I wish I could've seen that."

Skrillex-kun leaned forward as they entered the port for E-Z, muttering, "If it's a rabies virus infestation I'm calling in the newbies."

To their surprise, nothing was wrong graphics-wise. The sea was still blue, the pristine beach stretching on forever, and none of the buildings were pixelated Eldritch abominations. Hesitantly stepping out the cart, Choko watched Skrillex analyze the soundtrack, tilting her head as he announced that nothing was wrong there. "That's strange..." Turning towards the row of buildings, she called out, "Someone called for the Codebusters?"

A trashcan falling over was their only warning as a frenzied mob of frothing, snarling beach goes began to swarm from the doors and windows of the beach side high-rises. Mr. Waddles blasted them back with his liquorice lasers as the Codebusters piled back into the car, cookie tires squealing as they took off.

Skrillex-kun gasped, clutching his chest. "Sweet kitty flipping Havok Engine on a pixy stick, when I was joking about rabies I didn't expect this game to call me out!"

* * *

The beach was crawling with psychotic zombies, all thrashing and raving and oozing disturbing amounts of drool from wide open mouths. Choko wondered if they'd all been stung by poisonous honey bees from Sour Apple-chan's stage, but had to cut that headcanon short when a car rammed the Codemobile. "Scatter my Skittles, what's wrong with these people?!"

Honey-chan began beating the enemy zombies in the face, dodging fists filled with broken martini glasses and surfboard chunks. "Everyone in this game's been infected with a...I don't know, a rage virus or something!"

"Don't let them bite you!" Skrillex-kun tugged on his hair, dislodging the party girl trying to eat it. "That's how the disease spreads, first through blood then biting then the air!"

Choko felt her hands begin to sweat. An air-borne virus altering the mindsets of NPCs would devastate normal game play, and if this situation spilled out of E-Z, not even the expanded Codebuster core could stop it from unplugging every game in the arcade!

Mr. Waddles blasted rabid sorority girls off their hood and Choko hard-baked her resolve. She would not let this glitch hurt her friends, she was a code master darn it! In this moment, this was her only job, and she wasn't the penultimate boss for petty reasons.

"I don't know about viruses, but I do know that for each sickness there's a cure. To save this game we need to reverse engineer the virus into an antidote before the zombies go critical." Choko rammed her Codemobile into a building, bricks and glass creating a barrier against the horde. "Sonny-kun, I don't suppose you can manipulate the code matrix to do so?"

Skrillex-kun clutched his Action Replay, dark eyes glowing blue. "We're going to need a sample before I can properly dissect the virus. And it'll take a while; if I get distracted during the process I'll screw myself over, so I need total immersion."

"Then it's settled." Honey-chan cuddled Mr. Waddles close, a delicate fang popping out of her grin. "While Sonny plays Dr. Frankenstein and gets us a cure, we'll play defend the castle and keep the zombies from invading out space." Said zombies were climbing over the barrier, blank-minded rage pouring from their jerky movements. "All we need to do if find a proper castle."

Choko backed out the Codemobile, fingers dancing over her pocky dashboard. "Leave that to me. I did want to try out that mini-game after all." Ramping up a collapsed kiosk over the piling beach zombies, she shot down the boardwalk, sunlight glittering off the letters of her precious cart. Oh no, there wasn't going to be any casualties of any kind today, and these drooling excuses of proper NPCs didn't hold a candle to horrors she'd seen through.

Slamming on the brakes, she drifted into an alleyway, hitting the golden button by Mr. Waddles. The cart leaped off the ground to the roar of the engine kicking into high gear, wheels flipping sideways as the Codemobile MK II blasted into the sea salt sky. Grinning at the expressions on her friends' faces, she let her gaze drift over the high rise buildings. "So many castles, so little time..."

Honey-chan shook her head and clapped the candy racer on the back. "Find the best for the princess, china doll, because the fight's about to begin."

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey freaking loved Little Miss Choko Pockystix.

The kid was simply amazing. At the age of twelve she was already fulfilling the promises made so long ago, flying the Hovercodebile into a towering pile of rabid surfers without a hint of hesitation. Between that and her singing cheery J-Pop to the beat of dodging psychos in street cars, Honey was half ready to recode Choko into a SEGA girl.

But before she could start screwing with Tobikomi's intellectual property, they needed to get Skrillex a willing zombie and a place to do god mode in. Luckily they had a huge pool of resources to kidnap from, but Honey cracked her knuckles; it wouldn't do to have a twitchy subject, not one bit. "Choko, bring me down closer to the pools; swimmer NPCs might be more easy to handle."

"Pool party at 3 o'clock!" Choko dive bombed the rabid partiers, Skrillex whooping at the adrenaline rush. And Honey couldn't help but cheer along with him, because it was just so awesome being in a flying cart; the feeling was the stuff Chaos emeralds were made out of, all tight-fisted energy ripping through your code. She let off that energy by thrashing the thrashers in the really nice pool, snagging a sluggish zombie by the ends of his dreads. "You got a good one?"

"Nice and infected." The zombie was trying to bite Honey's hand; thank goodness for gloves. Conking the loser on his head, she hefted the now-limp body into the backseat. Handing Skrillex a hair tie, she let him get settled into data manipulation mode as Choko scoped out a proper hiding place. "Get away from the beach, that's where most of the zombies are."

Choko swerved the car out of the air and in between the buildings, the Hovercodebile lowering to the ground as the buildings became less opulent. They settled on a rather nice but woefully outdone two story townhouse, and Choko managed to soften the impact of crashing through the garage. Honey looked around the garage, the dark interior faintly lit up by Skrillex's glowing eyes. "Now we just have to camp and let Dr. Manhattan do his job."

Mr. Waddles hopped out of the car, snuffling around before finding a discarded bag of chips. While Choko admonished her pig for eating unhealthily, Honey sneaked up the stairs. It wouldn't do to have zombies appear out of nowhere and cause Skrillex to screw up his code. After the lovely experience of getting her lifeblood sheared through a foreign code matrix, she didn't dare wish that sort of pain on her vitriolic best buddy.

The upstairs was empty of life, but groaning outside the windows indicated swarms of zombies patrolling the streets for unaffected flesh to feast upon. Carefully stepping away in case she knocked something over and added to the fun, Honey heard Mr. Waddles fire lasers before her mind registered that oh yeah, there was a gaping hole in the garage.

Deciding that subtlety wasn't going to do her any good, Honey raced back down the stairs and blinked at the chaos. The cart with Skrillex and the zombie were gone, Mr. Waddles fighting against a swarm of zombies that were surrounding an unconscious Choko. One of the zombies had a boombox in his hands, chocolate splatters on the stereo matching the growing halo around Choko's head, and Honey's vision tunneled.

Hands flashing with code, she picked up a car nestled in the back of the garage and threw it at the zombies, shrieking like a Sonic fanboy locked in a Sony conference room. Even more brainless beach bunnies poured into the garage, and Honey began to dismantle the walls in her quest for more stuff to beat them with. Mr. Waddles jumped onto her head and shot them down with cherry scented death beams, and she swore to give the big a nice bubble bath for his troubles.

Eventually the last zombie went down and Honey rushed to Choko's side. The girl was stirring and clutching her head, fragmented Japanese spilling from her mouth. "It's ok Choko, just breathe, they're gone now."

"頭が痛い (Atama ga itai)..." Honey helped her up, using a discarded polish cloth to wipe away the sickly sweet-smelling blood sticking to her neck because little girls should never be bleeding melted chocolate from head wounds. "They came out of nowhere...where is Sonny-kun?"

Honey narrowed her eyes at the world beyond the garage. "They ran off with the cart; I'm sorry honey, I should've been down here to stop them."

Choko laughed, and Honey wondered if she'd have to add delirium to her concussion and scalp trauma. Straightening her posture, she held up her Action Replay. "I'm very protective of who drives my cart after the Joe Spunk incident. There's a tracker in the engine, so unless they eat the cart itself—and good luck, there's three jawbreaker polish coats—we'll be able to find them. And who knows, maybe we'll find the source of the virus itself."

She smiled like a war-battered heroine getting a second wind to kick some enemy arse, and Honey pulled her diminutive friend into a hug. Oh yes, there was a reason she loved this kid.

* * *

On foot the beach seemed to stretch beyond forever. They were forced to leave Mr. Waddles behind to follow the cart as zombies would pick out the pig before they could get to Skrillex, but they set him up in an abandoned beach house with a lovely view of that crystal clear ocean.

It was easy enough to convince the zombies to not eat them; Choko was still disorientated from meeting the business end of a boombox, and Honey's game was filled with dorky males who liked to grunt and drool in their down time, so imitating them was no hardship. Honestly, if her Sonic could see her now, making zombie noises to match her zombie shuffle, she would die of embarrassment.

Dressing for the occasion was a little harder. Promising herself that this was an emergency situation, she accessed her own data from her Action Replay and found the memory of her cat girl body in Dragon's Lair. Synching it to the game's code matrix, she regenerated herself into her cumbersome model, and immediately tore off that stupid costume for a more appropriate bikini, sarong and flip flops.

Choko was also out of place due to being a preteen in a sea of young adults, so she gently stretched her model age into a respectable sixteen, the awkward proportions helping Choko in her infected gait. Honey dressed her very conservatively in a calf-length sundress and sandals; the day she let Choko parade around like the beach bunnies searching for brains was the day she ate her Action Replay.

Holding onto Choko's elbow, she guided the confused girl down the boardwalk, and she had to admit that the summer sun on her shoulders felt wonderful. Too bad the snorting, frothing populace ruined the beach aesthetic; if they fixed the problem she was coming back for a proper vacation. Maybe she'd let this new model out for a spin, molding it into something she wasn't so exposed in.

The gentle beeps from Choko's Action Replay turned necklace led them to a huge party in a grand hotel, the place swarming like the zombie's beehive. "Stay close china doll, we're in enemy territory."

"Hnn..." Choko blinked, kicking a leg forward. "This body is weird, I don't like being so tall."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to the proportions with time. Now where is the heart of this madness..."

"Try the pool, it's always the pool."

"The concierge lady's giving me a dirty look. Not my fault I know how to fill out a bikini."

"It's true though, your sprite model is much more graceful than mine. Just look at how gangly I am!"

"Sorry hon, if I was back in your game I could fill out the model stretches better. Not to mention that puberty does that to a growing girl. Ah, the pool! Stairs or elevator?"

"Elevator's quicker but I bet they're overflowing with zombies. It'll be a slow walk to the top though..."

"Hmm...screw it, elevator it is. Skrilly needs to get out of enemy territory, and my feet are killing me."

They squeezed themselves into the elevator, pointedly ignoring the zombies drooling over them. Choko shifted closer to Honey, playing with her sundress. "But am I pretty like this? I mean, as a grown up?"

"Of course you are, why?"

"Well...you need to make sure that I'm back to normal before we go. I like to hang out with Mee Mee-chan and Roll-chan on Thursday nights, so we're going over to Roll-chan's game and I don't want Me—I-I mean her to see me in such a state after work."

Honey grinned. "You're still head over heels for Mega—"

"Hey look, this elevator has blocked off the 13th and 4th floors. I didn't know these people were concerned with superstition."

"Oh, I bet he would just love the way you look—"

"Keep your voice down, zombies don't gush over pipe dreams!"

"Aww Choko, why so serious, it's perfectly fine to—"

"Not everyone has the same luck in their love lives, Honey-chan!" With that tightly whispered snap the doors opened, letting Choko stomp into the pool party and Honey giggle behind her because she was adorable when she was mad. "Now where is Sonny-kun?"

Skrillex was still in the cart in god mode, but the cart was resting on a huge pyre next to the giant pool. The zombies were moshing to, fittingly enough, his own music as they prepared to have the most horrifying bonfire Honey had ever seen. "By the grace of Genesis, we are surrounded by psychos."

Choko pulled a handful of pocky out of her pockets, body thrumming with energy. "Well Honey-chan, we're not exactly the poster girls of decorum ourselves. Care to have a little fun at this party?"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

Skrillex was submerged in the code of this NPC. He knew everything about its stats, its personality, its morality meter and the probability of it committing crime to aid its quest for ultimate fun and pleasure.

So why, for the love of everything programmed, did he not see what was wrong with him?

"Alright, /search data log for past three hours."

Skrillex analyzed the logged memory, tracking the NPC's behavior. Everything was fine until 56:98 before closing hour, when suddenly his needs plummeted and the virus took hold. But where was the virus data? Had it rewritten its arrival in the memory logs so to hide its intrusion? Tricky bastard, trying to play Skrillex for a fool.

Shaking off mental exhaustion, /defrag NPC 452 aka Ben the Bromigo and Skrillex wondered what time it was. Usually he was in and out of god mode in little time, but sinking so far into one character had distorted his internal clock cycles. Wishing painful death upon the virus, he reanalyzed the NPC's data after the defragmentation and still nothing. He reset the code for the fifth time and still no change in the code and his behavior. Had the virus done irreparable damage?

If that was the case, then he needed to crate an antidote from the game's central programming. Sinking deeper into the code of E-X, he idly wondered if Honey and Choko were the ones making noise loud enough to register in his mind. Honey was probably teasing Choko about her crush on Megaman, nothing to worry about.

He became one with the game's lifeblood, and searched for any abnormalities. All the code boxes were flashing a healthy blue and pink, any static present was gold and caused by the Codebusters' influence, and Skrillex wanted to scream because there was no virus he could see. He'd never seen something on this caliber of subtlety; viruses loved to announce that heyo, I'm here to screw up your existence!, like in Sugar Rush and Tekken Tag 2. So why...

Aha! Skrillex brought a flickering code box close to his projected mind. /analyze code box LikeItWell. Like it well? Whatever it was, it was screaming at him that the well had not recycled and refilled after player #894 finished a game approx. 56:90 before arcade closing hours. Skrillex grinned because here was the source of the virus! It had spawned from the game not refreshing properly and infected all the NPCs and...

Wait. That wasn't a virus at work here.

Skrillex's mental eyes widened as he set simulation LikeItWell refill. There was nothing wrong with Ben the Bromigo's data when he analyzed it because there was no virus tracer keys, no data mutation, nothing that marked the presence of a virus. The simulation finished and Skrillex screamed loud and clear in his mental projection.

* * *

He resurfaced to a smoking hot brunette being flung over his head and off the roof. Roof? He was in the Codemobile MK II at what appeared to be a giant rooftop pool party, and the party goers were being beat to pulps by two girls in the middle of the fight. Mr. Waddles was shooting off strays who neared the Codemobile, and Skrillex's jaw opened. "Honey?!"

"Glad you're awake, Sonny boy!" She was a cat girl again and darn it all to the Minus World, she was really foking attractive in a red polka dot bikini and light blue sarong, especially since she was currently kneeing a pervy zombie in the crotch. "Choko, behind you!"

A cute pink haired teen in a pretty light yellow sundress turned and what the heck happened to Choko when he was down under? She cheered as she knocked back a charging group of zombies, yelling over the music—and that was HIS music playing!—with a bounce in her step, "I think I got this body model down! Oh, hello Sonny-kun! Did you create an antidote?"

Skrillex snarled, "Oh yes I did." Snapping his fingers, he refilled the LikeItWell to the brim and the zombies all froze. Color returned to their cheeks, their pupils returned to normal, and Ben the Bromigo sat up. "How are you feeling, good sir?"

"Dude, sick hairstyle! Like it!"

Suddenly the three were being showered with gold medals and coins as the former zombies turned back into vapid party bums, the viral apocalypse finished in a single line of code. Honey gaped, sputtering as she warded off lovestruck surfers, "What the heck just happened?!"

"This game runs on a popularity currency, and the code well for the ability to 'Like it' ran out. You can figure the rest out."

Honey began to turn red, arms shaking with pure rage. "So this entire time...they were just butthurt that they couldn't 'Like it"?! WHAT CHAOS IS THIS GAME MADE OF?!"

Choko petted Mr. Waddles, sitting next to Skrillex as Honey exploded. "I never did get to play that minigame. Want to go for a spin before Honey destroys the entire game, Sonny-kun?"

Skrillex grabbed a Redbull and vodka from the bar and downed it in one gulp. "Might as well, since I'm not coming back here unless I get paid."

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

"And then we talked for forever about what went down in E3 2013 since it affects the console room. Mr. Litwak's nephew got a sweet deal with Nintendo for a Wii U and a bunch of games since he and his friends are buddy buddies with important people, so the console room is excited." Vanellope yawned adjusting her seat on Ralph's arm. "We need to go to Roller Coaster Tycoon, it looks like a blast."

"I dunno kid, I doubt I could fit in a normal seat." Ralph was being all self-conscious about his mammoth height, so Vanellope tugged on his ear. "Oww, you brat! Tell you what, we'll head over on Sunday and see how it goes."

"Yay!" Vanellope slid off his arm, straightening her paper cup skirt. She kind of missed her teal hoodie and stockings from Before, but these purple and white ones were of much better quality, and didn't have the bad memory of Virus-Van in their stitching. Rolling her eyes at her girly fashion moment, she looked across the room to see the Codebusters returning. "Did everything go well?"

"The zombie virus was just them freaking out over not being able to be popular." Skrillex huffed and crossed his arms. "They're all turned up now, so I'm going to go tell Mee Mee and Roll to meet Choko here for their play date."

Choko rubbed the back of her head, pouting. "Oh come on, I'm perfectly fine—"

"You're lucky we're not making you go to the infirmary, little sister!" Honey looked very upset for some reason, Ralph muttering under his breath how touchy felines can get. "Not to mention what the stretching and unstretching of your model did to that concussion I know you have!" She sighed and pulled Choko into an hug, "Just for a few days, ok? You can still race, I'm just afraid of chocolate stains for the moment."

Vanellope frowned at her hands; each Sugar Rush racer had different kinds of filling—her's was a mixture of vanilla and mint extract—and she suddenly felt the urge to hospitalize her good friend. "I agree with Honey, Miss Pockystix. You can take your friends wherever in here, but I'm grounding you from outside adventures."

"Yes, Vanellope-heika." Choko came as close to grumbling at her leader than her code allowed, and Vanellope let her team sort themselves out for the night.

Ralph was chucking into his meaty palm, and Vanellope put her hands on tiny hips. "And what's so amusing, chuckle-monkey?"

"Nothing, Baroness Blubberbutt. Just funny to see you acting like a queen and all when you're like what, eleven years old?"

"I'm more of a twelve, although it's unclear what my set age is." Vanellope tapped her bottom lip, focusing on the white licorice strings of her hoodie. "Honey said she stretched Choko's model. Does that mean aging up?"

Ralph scratched behind his head. "I dunno, you know more about code than me, Ms. Princess-President."

"Hmm...it would be possible to make us look old like Honey or even Calhoun. But we'll just be kids in bigger bodies, and that's gross." Vanellope shuddered. "Imagine if I was turned into nineteen. I don't want to be in an old decrepit body when I'm still twelve."

"Oh, and I guess I'm just ancient old fart then?"

"Yep." Vanellope shrieked as Ralph started tickling her, and how do you get away from hands so huge? "Ok, I take it back! Hah!, uncle!"

"That's what I thought." Ralph let her catch her breath, which was nice because a queen had to breathe, but then he had a thoughtful expression on his mug. "Still though, imagine you being older. Can you even get older?"

"Only if my game gets upgraded so that I'm programmed to be older. It's the feelings that count most, not just the new set of legs." Vanellope snorted to herself, imagining being tall enough to pass Ralph's waist. "That would be the right way, not just a quick code fix..." She drifted off, then rubbed her arms. "That probably won't happen though. The latest sequel to my game is Sugar Rush GP for the Wii, and they're the same age as us. I even traded boots with the Vanellope from that game."

Ralph smiled, hefting her back onto his shoulder. "Well, even if you get an old decrepit body, you'll still be my best friend."

Vanellope was glad she was above his line of sight, because her expression had morphed into a goofy grin, and she didn't want to bother him with how much she appreciated his promise

* * *

"Choko!"

"Mee Mee-chan, Roll-chan! Come on, I'm giving you the grand tour tonight!"

"I brought my camera, I wanna show the guys back home that mountains made of ice cream exist. Oh, and Rock—I mean Megaman says hi."

"O-Oh, he did?"

"Ooh, you're blushing!"

"You are mistaken, Mee Mee-chan, I'm—"

"You know, he's only 18 Choko—"

"Don't make me push you into the cola hot springs!"

* * *

**頭が痛い ****(Atama ga itai): I have a headache. In this context it literally means my head hurts.**

**After I re-read my older chapters (THEY'RE SO SHORT. I AM DISAPPOINT IN PAST ME) I fell back in love with the Choko/Megaman not pairing. It's just so cute.**

**I felt that we needed some more Vanellope and Ralph interaction, since their relationship is so strong that when it was broken, Ralph spiraled into a three-month long depression. Luckily M. Sonic was there to make sure he didn't die of sadness, and now we have the dynamic duo of sass and height differences.**

**I also brought up my internal feelings about the popular "Vanellope gets an aged-up upgrade and falls for Ralph". For me, it only works if it's explicit that her mental age goes up along with her physical age, otherwise it's still "all pedo", as someone once put it. And to be honest, there would be a lot of conflicting feelings between the two; one minute they're like brother and sister, and the next they're trying to get over pseudo-incestuous feels. While I like a well done Jawbreaker, I am hesitant to write it myself because of this.**

**On Xtreme E-X Livin' 2, look it up online and tell me whether or not those beach bozos could handle their precious popularity function dropping off. The second one guy overreacts, the next one starts frothing at the mouth, and it's like Warm Bodies but with more violence towards young Codebusters. They should know better than to mess with Honey's loved ones.**

**Kitty flipping is adding ketamine and ecstasy together. Don't ask how Skrillex knows what that is.**

**That's it for now, I hope you enjoyed it :D**


	17. Street Fighter II

**Salutations, my friends! I'm finally free from being a live-in nanny (dat college money) so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things for this story. And coming up is a game that was supposed to be shown already, but fits best here because...reasons, I guess. **

**For some godawful reason, this chapter took me FOREVER TO WRITE. Idk why, I had the plot figured out before I started the last chapter, but good lord, this was definitely a fruit of my labor. And then I had to go diving through movie themes on YouTube, and you can definitely tell where that influence came in. Hopefully it tastes more like delicious pomegranate and not like failberries.**

**Disclaimer: SCREW THE DISCLAIMER I'M TOO TIRED TO BE WITTY. Just assume that I don't own copyrighted material from Disney, SEGA, Activision or Capcom, ok?**

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

Choko poured green tea into Bubblebetty-chan's waiting cup, wishing to wean the girl off of her unsweetened sugarplum tea addiction. The poor dear's normally light pink skin was turning purple, and Tobikomi knew that any parallels to her Before state needed to be kept to a minimum. The other former palette swaps agreed, and they were all seated in Choko's tea room, sharing vicious gossip and snack recipes. "Is it true that you saw Sour Apple-chan and Minty-chan sharing a banana split?"

"You bet your pocky I did." Pollipop-chan smirked as she held up the official back stories of the racers. "I'm the one who got them to stop fighting after the reset, but I didn't think that tricky foe-yay subtext was part of their programming!"

The assembled group giggled wildly, before Marzipanne-chan leaned in closer. "More importantly Polli... what kind of toppings did the banana split have?"

"It was apple-infused caramel over butter pecan and wintermint chocolate chip ice cream, and I even saw butterscotch coated peanuts sprinkled on the whipped cream!" Choko gasped as everyone squealed, and Pollipop-chan sipped primly at her sparkling tea. "I bet you five coins that by the end of the week, they'll be..." Everyone held their breath, "holding hands between races."

The pigs outside jumped as all the girls in the tea room erupted. Choko was ready to start regulating the betting pool when her Action Replay began to buzz under her obi. Groaning, she motioned for her friends to not yell embarrassing lies and answered, "This is Choko to whoever's calling, is there a problem?"

"_Sorry china doll, but Ryu just showed up at my game saying that his game glitched five minutes ago."_

Rolling her eyes as her fellow racers made oogaly faces at Honey-chan's voice, Choko left to start getting ready for work. "I'll be at your port in five minutes. Spread the message to Skrillex-kun for me?"

"Loud and clear; the loser's counseling the Tekken Tag 2 fighters to stop being so serious, so I'll go rain on their parades. Honey out."

"It must be so glamorous, going all over the arcade and meeting new people." Lemonetta-chan and Bubblebetty-chan sighed dreamily, eyes sparkling with wishes of adventure. "But it also seems like a lot of hard work. Do you ever wish things had gone differently?"

Choko paused as she zipped up her uniform. She may have lost most of her free time and position as High Secretary, and her tea room had seen far too little company in the past year. By all means, a normal Sugar Rush girl would've been fed up with the high demand. Shaking her head, she turned to face her friends and wiggled her fingers. In an instant the table refilled and prettily drawn invitation cards to their racing successors from Sugar Rush 2000, Sugar Rush: Candy Craze and Sugar Rush GP. Choko smiled at their excited faces. "No, I think this is exactly what I've been meant to be."

* * *

Choko swerved the Codemobile to a stop in front of Honey-chan and Skrillex-kun, nothing with appreciation that they liked her expert handling. Not that she was a compliment fisher like some people—certainly not Taffyta-chan, where did you hear that?—but it was nice to see that flashy moves still rang in the code of rather cynical programs. "Where is Ryu-san?"

"He went back just a second ago to keep the problem from spreading." They jumped into the backseat and Skrillex-kun rubbed Mr Waddles' ears, eyes fixed on the port to Street Fighter II. "We also ran into M. Sonic and the Chun-Li from the other SFII. They're clean as far as they know."

Honey-chan casually leaned against Choko's chair, but the young racer could feel the protective concern radiating from her friend like the heat from a sweet seeker. It made her feel safer as they entered SFII, but Choko still felt uneasy; there was nothing visually amiss with the game. "Sonny-kun..."

"There's nothing explicit in the soundtrack..." But Skrillex-kun stood tensely, before yelling at the assorted group of fighters, "What kind of glitch is going on here?"

One of the beefier men, Guile-san, trudged forward with a sheepish expression. Blanka-san was pulled along with him, the former grumbling, "I kinda...I don't know, we're just stuck together."

Honey-chan sighed, hands on hips. "Looks like you fused your hit boxes together or something. When did this happen?"

Guile-san went off into a long-winded explanation that Choko felt go way over her head, but her battle game-born friend seemed to understand. Looking around, she noticed that the timer for the stage was still going. Skrillex-kun followed her gaze and began to pale. "Oh no..."

Honey-chan turned, started by his quiet exhale. "They were having time friendly fights when Guile managed to lock Blanka to his avatar and knock him unconscious. Talk to me Sonny boy, what are you seeing?"

Skrillex-kun walked up to Blanka before slapping him soundly across the face. He was suddenly pulled to the unmoving behemoth's side, and the timer counted down to three seconds. "Blanka's not knocked out, he's dead! And that means—"

The game timed out and Guile went into a victory pose before freezing. Skrillex-kun glitched violently and Choko wanted to scream, but then the world collapsed upon itself before she had time to make a sound.

* * *

**Honey's POV**

* * *

Honey had experienced game disasters before.

Sonic the Fighters was a well-built game, even if they forgot to code in the American title into their programming, and despite being a glitch stuck in a hellhole, the Void was solidly concrete. Yet for all that jazz, their console was a video game console, and she'd ridden out blackouts, short circuits and game crashes with grace. As much grace as a static block of pixels could, anyway.

Then again, even if your game got turned off unsafely and the power was cut to the game environment, you didn't die in the darkness as long as you were in your home game. And as she came to in the sightless landscape, she knew that she was very far from Kansas at the moment. "Sonny! Choko! Can anyone hear me?"

Her voice didn't carry in the stifled air, and she shakily raised her Action Replay. It's light illuminated her body but nothing else, and she sank to her knees. The miniscule, ever so fragile cartridge strung around her neck like costume jewelry had a direct link to the energy supply of whatever game it was in. SFII was still plugged in, so it still glowed like a Christmas tree star, and it was keeping her alive in the powerless game-crashed underworld.

Heady with the knowledge of her survival, she ran her fingers over the subtle markings in the cartridge's surface. "Honey to Codebusters, are you alive out there?"

…

…

…is this what her Sonic felt for eleven years?

"_Honey-chan!"_

Honey nearly fainted with relief but kicked the weakness in her code to the curb; she had a mission to finish. "Glad to hear you hon. Are you in one piece?"

"_Oh Honey-chan! This is so m-much different than when Mario-san's game crashed!"_ Her little child voice seemed so much smaller in the void, and Honey crushed the seeds of despair tighter in her mental fist.

"Don't worry dearest, that was because it was a scripted crash. This is a bit more catastrophic, no big deal." Honey began to walk forward because if she had time to worry, she had time to get moving and get working on fixing the problem. "I can promise you that I've seen this before. It's just a little scary because we're foreign data and the power for the game environment turned off."

"_The p-power! B-But—"_

"Choko, listen to me. Our Action Replays are linked to the game's power supply, so we're not going to die. Besides, do you think Skrilly would let you die in such a mainstream manner? That hipster god modder's probably dealing with the problem right now."

Choko began to giggle over the feed and Honey prided herself in keeping the girl from crying. Amy was younger than Choko but didn't have Turbo trauma ready to cue the waterworks. A small pulse of life beckoned under her feet, and Honey picked up the pace. "You still there little sister?"

"_Yeah." _The darkness was cramming itself in Honey's ears, and she strained to hear the muted reply._ "I can't anything in here; how are we supposed to fix the glitch?"_

"Well, we can't have a death trigger restart the game, since that's waaaay too much obligation for a non profit organization like ours." Honey swore she saw a light in the far distance, and pushed her legs to the max. She just had to imagine it was like sixteen years ago, back when she and her Sonic ran circles around the Void to stay in shape and keep from going insane. "We gotta find Princess Skrilla, he might have some good ideas."

Honey didn't hear Choko's reply, as something came out of the darkness and wrapped a cold hand around her throat.

* * *

"Honey-chan? Honey-chan, can you hear me?"

"—1000 0101 1101 0110. Activate /localreset Sonny Moore aka Skrillex."

"Sonny-kun! Oh, are you going into computer mode?"

"...hzzzzzzt. Sorry babydoll, I was reconfiguring myself after I got handcuffed to Guile and Blanka. Damn glitchy arcade fighting mechanisms."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you're alive! But have you hear from Honey-chan? She was just on the line."

"It's hard to hear through these when we're wandering through anti-electricity interference. But to be on the safe side, keep listening."

"Hai. Do you know where we are?"

"My console commands don't work on anything expect myself, since we have to reconnect the electricity flow to the game world. Out of all the glitches we could've seen today, we got the one that would've killed anyone without an Action Repla—"

"Sonny-kun?"

"Garughack!"

"Sonny-kun?!"

"..."

"...oh dear."

* * *

"Ok Pockystix, you need to stay focused. There's no electricity, if you drop your Action Replay you die, and both of your teammates have dropped off the grid. Nothing you can't handle."

…

"Who am I kidding, this is a disaster! And the other team is busy in Joust tonight! I just need to find the code well, it always spawns in a game. Even if the power goes out, or Virus-Van tries to murder us all, I need to—oof!"

"..."

"Oh, 済みません (sumimasen)! I didn't know that the game characters would spawn in a state like this."

"... ..."

"I didn't catch your name...?"

"!"

"!"

* * *

**Skrillex's POV**

* * *

He roared back into life as Choko screamed over his Action Replay. Glowing a dangerous blue, he ripped through the darkness to her side, dragging her away from the danger. They crash landed somewhere in the darkness, and the blue faded as his wounds took dead center.

"Sonny-kun!" Choko was at his side, and he could see her lit up by their cartridges. Hopefully she couldn't see him, because he wasn't feeling too pretty at the moment...he struggled to sit up but she gently pushed him down. "横たわってください (Yokotawatekudasai), I need to make sure you're ok."

Skrillex grinned in the darkness, before turning his head towards the ever expanding nothing. "Honey's still...out there, kid. You gotta save...her too."

"But what about you?" Her eyes were just so large, and he needed to erase the fear there because he could feel something skulk their way.

"I'm a physical god...r-remember? I got this." He gripped her shoulder with his clean hand, sealing his stomach with the other. She levered him to his knees—FOK FOK FOK—then to a careful stand against her shoulder, and he could smell the chocolate conditioner in her hair "The sooner we get H-Honey, the s-sooner...we can go home. But in c-case something happens...promise me you'll..." He was too tired to continue, but she laughed into the dark cotton surrounding them.

"We'll go slowly, and tuck that Action Replay under your jacket." She paused, then sent a silly little smirk his way as she led them away from the approaching danger. "This time only I'll permit your usual fashion style."

He needed to focus on self-healing commands and keep himself from dying a pathetic death, but he let himself laugh at that.

* * *

Since their voices carried like an under-supported alto riff on mute, Choko filled the eerier silence with aimless chatter. Not only was it pretty hilarious—that Gloyd kid scaring Jubileena so badly that her screams caused a cherry pie avalanche was just so Joel—but it soothed the viciously terrible ache in his code. /numb area stomach regardless, Skrillex began to play with his music player. It didn't hurt to have a little music to keep their minds off of the danger lurking in the nothing.

Darling Choko had little knowledge of the great movie soundtracks, and he blew her little eardrums out with glorious John Williams, letting her play with his lightsaber to the tune of Star Wars. Setting his music player to auto, he let Choko move on ahead so he could clutch his chest in privacy.

/numb area fullbody wasn't cutting the job, and Honey was nowhere to be seen. Honestly, he should have never touched Blanka; he should've thrown Choko and Honey back into the Codemobile and let Mr. Waddles get them the fok out of Street Fighter II. Speaking of which, where was the little pig? Skrillex grimaced as his hands kept getting wet, and fell flat on his face.

"Sonny-kun!" Choko helped him away from the jutting piece of...Skrillex felt along the edge with a good hand. Together they mapped out a large rectangle with a curved dome made of a less dense material. Choko gasped as she felt the top of the dome, and her Action Replay strobed as she bounced around him. "Vanellope-heika described this to me before! It's the code well, we can restart the game and find Honey-chan!"

Skrillex sighed; he hated breaking bubbles of people other than Honey and Joel (and Suri, Pixie, Fro, David...the DJs were not safe). "Then it has a lock that only this game's specific Action Replay, or in this case Game Genie, can open." Damn skeleton key cartridge limitations; what was the use of an all-purpose game modifier if you can't use it when you really need to?

She took the bad news with plucky grace, letting him lean back on her delicate shoulder. "That's ok, we need to focus on finding Honey-chan anyway." Her short legs eased their pace and Skrillex relaxed just a little bit.

Then the music snapped from a moderately soft "Princess Leia's Theme" to a deafening "Halloween Theme", and they both screamed as they felt something wicked come their way. Luckily Choko was as good of a foot racer as a cart racer, and she took off running in a random direction. Skrillex felt his hasty code patches tear open, and he hoped that Choko's chocolate scent would cover the disturbing amount of iron dribbling into his shoes.

He couldn't see the bastard in the thick nothing, but the music slowly morphed into "Every Breath You Take", and that wasn't as comforting as it should've been. Choko wrapped an arm around his waist when he faltered and oh crap. "Sonny-kun!"

"No worries...I'm alright." She searched his stomach with a feather-light touch but it hurt terribly. Her hands weren't much smaller than his, and they were dark blue in the faint light. Suddenly nauseous, he sank down to a fetal position because being on his knees just wasn't going to work. "W-We need Honey. Her code's the weakest.." Choko bit her lip and he knew what she was thinking. Either make a run for it and find Honey before their knife happy stalker found them, or stay with a downed DJ. He smiled and held her hands, ignoring the slight squelch they made against his. "Just go, I c-can hide."

She turned away, probably fighting back the urge to cry, but then she looked at him with an expression straight from a horror movie. "Play dead and hide under your jacket if our new friend comes looking. I'll get Honey and the Codemobile, and then I'll come back for you, ok?"

"Ok..." She guided him to make a sad huddle on the ground, pain leeching into his nervous system even as he /numb part fullbody. He looked up to see Choko hold her Action Replay under her chin, and her eyes were lit up with a dangerous blue. "H-Here, take this." He handed her his music player; Havok knew she needed the audio cues more than he did.

She smiled her thanks and tucked stray hair behind his ear before facing the darkness. Her sweet expression melted back into that dark determination, and her voice buffered against the choking black.

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for money I can tell you I don't have gold coins on me, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a short but successful career of racing and code manipulating. Skills that make me a nightmare for mean stabby people like you. If you let my friends and I fix this game crash that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will BLEED YOU LIKE A STUCK TRUFFLE."

Skrillex watched her go with eyes full of wonder, and prayed that their attacker didn't dare to touch her precious Codemobile.

* * *

**Choko's POV**

* * *

"The Planet Krypton" echoed darkly in her little bubble of sensation, but Choko hardly cared about the acoustics. All she cared about was that Skrillex-kun was bleeding out in the darkness, and she felt the blood he was trying to hide. But how in the name of Sugar Rush was he supposed to hide 15 stab wounds in his small torso?!

Her hands were still sticky, and she felt a strange comfort in clenching her fists. Honey-chan never replied, so either she was worse off than Skrillex-kun or dead. And if after all the trials and tribulations that girl went through, she was just to die at the hands of a faceless monster in the middle of a crashed game, then Choko was going to break the arcade in half. Starting with the entity that changed her music to "Psycho".

A cold hand bragged her hair and son of an onsen geisha, he ripped out her scrunchie and bow! Kicking outwards, she stabbed her pocky chopsticks into a hand that was tugging at her throat, and ducked under his retaliation swing. He didn't make a sound the entire time, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

She could just barely make out the attacker's form, a hulking figure with monstrous speed and power. He smacked her hard across the face and she hit the ground, scrambling away when he tried to stomp her into a fine jelly. Blinking away angry static stars, she sank her Action Replay into his thigh and raged, "EXTERMINATE!"

The figure disappeared into the anti-electricity spectrum, and she held her cartridge close. Her cheek ached and her hair was getting in her eyes and she wanted to go home. But Honey-chan and Skrillex-kun needed her to be strong, and she pulled together all the inspiration that the kunoichi in her imported movies had for herself.

Walking into the dark, she released nervous steam by fiddling with Skrillex-kun's music player. Endless music categories flashed in its small screen, from glitchstep to cartoon themes to video game music? She scrolled down to find that Skrillex-kun had downloaded the complete score of Sugar Rush, both Japanese and international versions. The familiar notes of her original theme brought a smile to her lips, and she quietly sang the J-Pop influenced lyrics to the nothing around her.

A small glow to the far left caught her eye, and she raced off to see if it was Skrillex-kun or Honey-chan or whoever populated this underworld. She gasped as she came upon the figure. "Mr. Waddles!"

Her security pig was jumping around the Codebuster, whose hazard lights cast a small halo of light. She tried petting him but he jumped out of her hand, oinking hysterically and flashing red. Bringing up his stats, she paled; he had only half a heart keeping him from dying. Further inspection of her cart revealed terrible slice marks in the fondant letters, marshmallow seats ruptured with stab holes and chunks of cookie torn from the wheels.

The fact that Honey-chan was propped against the bender was the only thing keeping Choko from having a rage meltdown to rival Virus-Van's.

* * *

Choko rolled her eyes; of course Skrillex-kun wouldn't be in the same general area she left him in. Then again, time and space had little meaning in a void, so no one could blame her for being very lost. Honey-chan was curled in the space between Mr. Waddles and the front door, and the glow of her Action Replay illuminated the dark bands around her throat.

The stalker had tried to choke out her dear friend, only relenting when Honey-chan played dead and Mr. Waddles drove up. Such a good security pig, but his bravery nearly cost him his own life! The steering wheel groaned under her grip, and was it just her or were creepy waterphone chords bleeding into her radio?

Mr. Waddles suddenly screeched and Ezaki Glico protect them, but the murderous fiend was in the backseat. Choko ducked under the knife swing, swerving the car around to dislodge his grip on the ruined upholstery. Liquorice lasers flared into the dark as her pig tried to save her from getting a new mouth cut into her throat. A cold hand tore at her uniform, and the fear in Honey-chan's eyes made Choko snap.

With a shriek worthy of any final girl, she judo flipped the stalker away, leveraging him up and over the windshield. Slamming on the brakes, she felt him tumble off the hood, and gunned the engine with a pedal-breaking stomp. Mr. Waddles let out a battle cry as Choko rammed the Codemobile into the monster, taking her speed up to level 11. No mercy for this やつめ (yatsume), no foking mercy! The headlights illuminated the dark figure against the locked dome, and Choko put everything she had into speeding up.

They crashed mightily against the dome, a golden Game Genie peeking out of the figure's form. But that didn't matter, what did was making the would-be murderer bleed like a stuck truffle. Choko backed up for a bit before ramming back into the dome, the jawbreaker coating holding firm. Each twist and crunch spurred her on, and Mr. Waddles focused his lasers directly on the disgusting monster turning into jelly on her grill.

The music changed to a rowdy and rather adult trap song, but Choko liked the beat. "くたばれ、きさま！ (Kutabare, kisama!) You—tried—to—KILL—MY—FRIENDS! And now I—have to—act—a—FOOL!"

With a final ram the Game Genie flew into the lock, and Choko was free to drag the evil man under her wheels and away from Skrillex-kun, who was...laughing? Poor thing must be suffering from blood loss! Handing the wheel to Mr. Waddles, she shook a finger, "And don't let up, honey. Oh, Honey-chan, if you feel up to it you can drive as well."

Honey-chan was also laughing silently, giving Choko a thumbs up. Smiling cheerfully, Choko jumped into the code well, sighing in relief as color and light surrounded her. Diving deeper, she floated by the code box maintaining electricity flow and pulled out a switch. And right before she turned the power back on, she swore she saw a strange purple box named disappear in a flicker of light.

* * *

**Vanellope's POV**

* * *

Vanellope met Ryu's guilty expression for a moment before sighing at the scene in front of her.

Everyone was in the infirmary _again_, with various members of games piling into the too small space _again_. Codebusters East was directing frantic friends and curious bystanders to great effect, but the three beds in the center of the room were still bustling with activity.

Honey was pouting because while she was clear to fight in the morning, Dr. Mario had the sad news that her voice would be gone for the rest of the week. The bad guys in her game actually had the gumballs to laugh about that, and Honey quickly put the good doctor to work by punching their lights out.

Skrillex was being yelled at by Suri, the leader of the DJs, and his friends weren't exactly helping. Listening in, Vanellope heard snippets of their lovely conversation:

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T PLAY UNTIL NEXT WEEK BECAUSE YOUR SYUSTEM NEEDS DEEP-CODE DEFRAGGING?"

"Bro, you dun goofed so hard—"

"WHY IS IT THAT YOU CAN'T DO YOUR JOB WITHOUT GETTING SLICED UP?"

"Come on Suri, it's not like he—"

"DO I NEED TO SEND A BABYSITTER WITH YOU TO KEEP YOUR BABY ASS SAFE?"

"Ooh, can I volunteer?"

"SHUT UP JOEL, I'M BUSY YELLING AT MR. I CAN ALTER THE UNIVERSE AT WILL BUT I STILL GET GUTTED BY A B-HORROR MOVIE FREAK!"

Wincing, she moved towards the third bed, which was far calmer and a bit more surreal. Choko was in a middle of a tea party with Choko 2000, Choko Candy-Craze and Choko GP, all talking in fast paced Japanese. Choko GP in particular looked very unimpressed by what the original pocky brained girl had to say, and without a word she daintily set her cup down, glided over to Guile and leveraged him through a window. A faint "I deserved that!" managed to soften her expression, but not by much.

Shaking her head, Vanellope turned back to Ryu. "So do you know what tried turning my Codebusters into sliced cheese?"

"Not a clue, Your Majesty. But there are rumors that through truly unattainable means, a mysterious foe will come to...well, you can see the damage here." Ryu scratched his chin, before turning. "Hey Ken! You remember that scary story Dhalism likes to tell?"

"You mean the one about the dragon master creep who fights to the death?" Ken laughed, synching his movements with Ryu. "That's just a dumb story—do you really think that there's an OP fighting boss god skulking around our data? That's just a bad rumor that game magazine started!"

"Oh I know that feel." Vanellope snorted, adjusting her crown. "For years gamers tried launching Adorabeezle through a wall, claiming that there was a hidden bonus level filled with gold coins!"

Immediately a storm of stories about gullible gamers trying to break the game to gain some hearsay achievement swept through the infirmary, and Vanellope left them to their own devices. Ralph was waiting for her at his game, and while she felt a bit overwhelmed at times between being a queen and making sure that the Codebusters didn't die and racer-related drama, she wouldn't change a thing; this was what her life was meant to be, and no impossible prize could change her mind.

* * *

**済みません ****(sumimasen): Excuse me**

**横たわってください ****(Yokotawatekudasai): Please lie down/stay lying down? (I know the ending is correct but I'm unsure for the verb. Google translate, don't fail me now!)**

**son of an onsen geisha: Onsen geisha had a very bad reputation for doubling as prostitutes, which was a connotation that spread to "real" geisha and Choko's inspiration. So she's saying a rather adult phrase here, but she's dealing with a murderer so it's justified.**

**Kunoichi: female ninja**

**Ezaki Glico: The company that created pocky**

**やつめ ****(yatsume): Bastard. Note that the ending me adds more negative connotation to the already rude yatsu.**

**くたばれ、きさま！ ****(Kutabare, kisama!): Drop dead, you (bastard)! Kutabare also has the meanings of "You're going down!", "Go and take a running jump", and a few four letter words I can'rt say without bumping up the rating. Kisama is a very rude form of you, having the meaning os bastard basically. As with temee, this is well-known to Naruto fans.**

**And that's it for the translations; on to the actual story content!**

**In Street Fighter II, there is a "handcuff glitch" with Guile. Basically, through a specific attack, you will both KO/kill the opponent and lock him to Guile. This isn't an issue if you can unlock the opponent, but if the time runs out and they're still handcuffed, the game will crash.**

**Because Skrillex locked himself to the pile, his foreign data accidentally caused the electricity flow to the game part of the game to turn off. All the native characters saw this as a brief blackout in their memories. But to anyone not linked to an Action Replay/Deus ex MacGuffin, this would be fatal because no electricity equals instant death. Remember that when you unplug without saving first.**

**The psycho murderer wasn't going to be in the chapter until I read an article on the SF wiki while listening to the Halloween theme (which brought in the many, many music drops in the chapter). This guy was referenced in movie as graffiti, and here's his debut in my cracked up universe: Sheng Long! Straight from the wiki: Sheng Long is a character once thought to appear in the Street Fighter game. He is regarded as the most famous character hoax not only in the history of Street Fighter, but in all of fighting games. The name "Sheng Long" was based off a mistranslation of "Shoryuken", found in one of Ryu's early victory quotes, "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance". The large amount of fans questioning the quote lead to a rumor spread by EGM that Sheng Long was actually a secret boss character fought under extreme conditions. The whole hoax would become one of the most famous hoaxes and video game legends in gaming history, spreading globally."**

**Everyone knows about this kind of concept. Some cool, invincible content that a friend of a friend once unlocked with a ridiculous list of requirements. All untrue, but some are so legendary that they begin to haunt the games they "originated" from...spooky, man. Good thing that Choko is a final girl straight from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is trained in the arts of car-fu!**

**Yes, I used a Taken reference. And a Doctor Who reference, and a Buffy, Scary Movie, It's a Wonderful Life and various other references. That's the magic of being an author, you get to cram in all your favorite things down your readers' throats :D**

**I hope that you liked this chapter, even though the tone and plot kept making u-turns from where I wanted them to go!**


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